


I Said Hey, What's Going On?

by glitterfics



Category: Sense8 (TV), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gay Bashing, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 09:43:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterfics/pseuds/glitterfics
Summary: Eight people from across the world share a disturbing dream of a woman killing herself and then discover that they have become mentally and emotionally linked.For Bobby Drake and John Allerdyce, suddenly finding themselves as part of a cluster of sensates is made even more complicated by their instant attraction to each other despite never having met in person. Throw in a couple of older sensates who show up to help them and a man called Stryker hunting them all down and their already troublesome lives have taken a definite turn to the weird and dangerous.





	1. Twenty Five Years and My Life is Still

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marvel_bang 2017.  
> Thanks as always to the gorgeous lazydazyfics for her beta and her insistance that a certain song mentioned in the fic is an earworm, yet managing to entirely miss the bigger earworm that is the title of the fic. It's why I love her <3  
> This is a fusion fic between X-Men and Sens8. There are no mutant powers and I have made Warren more like the Warren from the early X-Men comics than the Warren from X-Men Last Stand - but who knows how movie!Warren would have turned out if he didn't have to hide who he was all his life ;)

_A scream echoed through a deserted and crumbling mansion. The rotting curtains fluttered from the wind coming in through the broken windows and water steadily dripped from the cracked ceiling. A storm raged outside and the thunder almost seemed to make the building shudder while the occasional flashes of lightening flooded the mansion with blinding light._

_In a large room up the winding staircase, three people were taking shelter; two men and a woman. One of the men paced the room while the second sat on a discarded and stained mattress with the woman leaning against him. She screamed a second time and her body arched away from the man in pain._

_“I can’t...” she gasped. “I can’t block her out any longer.”_

_The man holding her stroked her arm soothingly and brushed a kiss against the top of her head. “That’s okay, Jean. We knew you’d have to let her in at some point. We’re hidden well enough that Stryker won’t find us yet.”_

_“Says you,” growled the other man. “I can’t believe I let you talk us into this. Xavier’s mansion? It’ll be the first place on his list.”_

_“Logan...” the man on the mattress said in a warning tone, and nodded his head at Jean._

_She was slumped against him but her body was shaking with uncontrollable tremors. Her face was pale and sweaty with her red hair plastered against her forehead. Logan’s face softened as he looked at her and he exhaled roughly before dropping to his knees beside her, taking her hand in his with a muttered apology._

_“Scott was right,” she told Logan in a shaking voice. “The mansion is too obvious. Stryker will think it’s the last place we’d...”_

_The last word was bitten off as another wave of pain clearly washed over her. Her back bowed again and this scream was louder than the rest._

_“Oh my god!” she breathed, falling back against Scott. “It’s working. I think I can see them.”_

_She stared in front of her as if she could see something there rather than just the rotting wallpaper._

_"There's a young man, it's early morning and he's walking home from a night out," she began to describe what she saw. "A girl practising ballet in an empty studio. Now another man, he's in a library but he looks very stressed about something. Unlike the next one, he's smoking on a rooftop in the bright sunlight."_

_She paused and smiled at whatever it was she was 'seeing'._

_"That's only four, Jean," Logan murmured, gently. "Can you see the other four as well?"_

_Jean nodded. "A girl with white streaks in her dark hair, she's just out of the shower and is getting ready for a date. Another girl dancing to music from an old radio; she's having so much fun. There's a man, he's watching a storm from his bedroom window. And another man, he's in a barn and he's carrying bales of hay into the loft."_

_She twisted her body around to look at Scott. "Can you see them?"_

_“No, Jean. Don’t try to send me anything yet,” Scott said. “You’re too weak.”_

_She gave him a sad smile. “It’s alright. You have to see them, Scott; so that you can find them. Can you see them?”_

_A long moment passed before Scott nodded and Jean's shoulders slumped in relief._

_"We have to find them. Find them and keep them safe," she told him a split second before her eyes shot towards the front of the mansion. “No! He’s here.”_

_“Shit!” Logan cursed and jumped to his feet. “Time to go!”_

_He leaned down as if to swing Jean into his arms but she stopped him with a hand on his chest._

_“I’m too weak to move,” she told him. “You have to leave me.”_

_“What? No!” Scott immediately protested. “We’re not leaving you anywhere.”_

_“If we leave you behind, you know what Stryker will do to you,” Logan said._

_“I won’t let him,” Jean replied before turning back to Scott. “If you try to take me with you then he’ll catch us all. We can’t let him do that. You have to find the cluster and warn them. Teach them. They are what’s important now; not me.”_

_“Jean...” Scott’s voice broke and she stroked his face._

_“I love you, never forget that,” she told him before turning to Logan. “You either.”_

_Logan made a strangled sound before he bent down and kissed her, almost desperately. He pulled away abruptly and grabbed Scott by the arm._

_“We’ve got to go, Scott. I can hear them outside.”_

_Scott tried to free himself from Logan’s grip. “You go. I’m staying with Jean. I’m not going to leave her!”_

_Logan growled and yanked Scott to his feet. “You know that she’s right as well as I do. We’ve got to find the kids before it’s too late, I can’t do that by myself. Don’t make me knock you out and carry you out of here.”_

_“Please, Scott,” Jean begged. “Go. Protect them; do it for me.”_

_Tears ran freely down Scott’s face as he finally gave a jerky nod. He copied Logan’s earlier actions by leaning down and kissing Jean, then both men turned and ran out of the room. They made it down the staircase and into the shadows beyond before the front doors burst open and a group of soldiers flowed in, followed by a short, chubby man with a beard, whose very presence made the two men shiver; Stryker. The soldiers and Stryker immediately headed up the staircase which gave Logan and Scott the opportunity to slip out of the back of the building and into the storm but not before they heard a single gunshot ring through the mansion._


	2. Trying to Get Up That Great Big Hill of Hope

**_ John _ **

 

St John Allerdyce was far too hot. You’d think that he’d be able to cope with the Australian heat seeing as he was actually Australian but his family had left the country when he was a baby and he’d spent his formative years in New York. As such, he was far more used to colder weather. It wasn’t something that he’d considered when he’d decided to move back to Australia; just as he hadn’t considered the fact that his accent and general demeanour would mark him out as an American, an outsider, _a tourist_ , rather than one of their own. That hadn’t really helped with his whole, find a decent paying job and put himself through college plan. It was a good thing that he’d learned a few tricks from his deadbeat dad before John had run away and never looked back.

 

This day was hotter than normal, John thought as he leaned against the railing and stared up at the sunny sky without a single cloud to mar the brilliant blue. He took a drag from his cigarette, already craving the air conditioning inside, but he made himself take his time. It was all about attitude; he couldn't look too eager, even if that particular eagerness was only for cooler air, and he certainly couldn't acknowledge the anticipatory buzz below his skin. This particular fight was going to be tough, John's opponent was a lot bigger than him, not to mention the fact that they were fighting in the midday heat rather than having a normal late night fight. But that's why the money was so good; the rich business types wanted to watch their illegal street fights during their lunch hours so they could still attend social functions in the evening.

 

John exhaled the smoke in a long stream, giving off an aura of nonchalance to today's allocated referee, Deano, who was leaning next to the door to the rooftop smoking area. Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise. He glanced to either side of him, checking for whatever might be causing it but the roof was empty besides him and Deano, who was busy playing something on his phone.

 

John frowned. He’d learned to trust his instincts early on, another lesson from dear old dad, and knew that something wasn’t right. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shimmer in the air, something that he’d initially dismissed as rising heat but now appeared to be something else. Checking that Deano was still engrossed with his phone, John took a closer look at the shimmer and had to bite back a gasp when he realised that he could see someone looking back at him.

 

Instantly, he was no longer on the roof. Instead he was in a rundown room in a decrepit building while a storm howled in the night outside.

 

“What the fuck?” he muttered to himself.

 

He shook his head and took another look around because this had to be some kind of joke being played on him but he was still in the room. The woman who he'd initially seen in that shimmer was also in the room laying on a grubby mattress with two men beside her. It was a tableau he'd seen before, while he lived on the streets, but this felt different from that. The woman, despite looking ill enough that a light breeze could knock her over, didn't look like a drug addict and the men didn't look like they were paying for her services so she could afford her next fix. The scene actually seemed more intimate than sexual, as if they all genuinely loved and cared about each other.

 

All of their attention was fixed on John which was more than a little disconcerting, and then suddenly, they all began to urgently talk but John couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was muffled as if he was under water.

 

“Someone slipped something into my drink,” he said quietly. “They had to have. This is crazy.”

 

The hallucination was so real though. He felt as if he could reach out and be able to touch the wall and feel the texture of the peeling wallpaper beneath his fingers.

 

All of a sudden there was a whir of motion coming from the trio of people. One of the men seemed to be trying to drag the other man away but he resisted until the woman said something. Then he kissed her and both men left. The woman stared after them for a few moments before she turned her attention back to John. As their eyes met, sound rushed in and John could hear banging coming from below them along with a lot of footsteps coming in their direction. He instinctively wanted to move and hide but he couldn’t seem to stop staring at the woman.

 

“I wish that I could come and find you,” she said. “That I could teach you and share your joy in your new abilities but all I can do is make sure that he doesn’t use me to find you.”

 

Without breaking eye contact, she slid her hand under the mattress and pulled out a gun. John tried to shout, to stop her from doing what he suddenly knew she was going to do but he couldn’t make a sound.

 

“Trust in yourselves, trust in the rest of your cluster and trust the men I’ve sent to you,” the woman continued even as people began to stream into the room.

 

She held her gun out in front of her and one man stepped forward of the others.

 

“Jean...you’re not going to shoot,” he said, slowly approaching her. “Xavier taught you better than that. Come with us and we’ll help you. Don’t you want to shut out the noise in your head? We can do that, just like we can help others like you.”

 

“You don’t help people like me,” the woman, Jean, replied. “You hunt us and I’m not going to help you do it.”

 

She then turned the gun and put the barrel into her mouth. The man gave a cry and began to run forward to stop her but he was too far away. As she pulled the trigger, John heard her voice in his head.

 

_Remember me._

 

“Holy shit!” John yelped and stumbled back.

 

The room disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and John found himself back on that sunny rooftop above an empty office block and not in a rotting room with a dead woman and a lot of soldiers.

 

“Hey! Are you okay, man?” Deano was looking at him strangely and John realised that he’d actually shouted out loud and not just in his head.

 

He struggled for something to explain that away, something that wasn’t a freaky as fuck hallucination, when his forgotten cigarette burned his fingers. John cursed again and dropped the cigarette on the ground.

 

“I'm good,” John told Dean ruefully, grabbing onto the cigarette excuse. “Just a little singed. Who knew that smoking could be so dangerous.”

 

Deano rolled his eyes and John smirked at him, happy to have been relegated back to the position of asshole rather than a weird shouting bloke; he wanted to get attention so that he could get more high paying matches but not the wrong kind of attention.

 

When it finally started, the match went on for longer than expected. John knew that everyone believed he'd go down in a matter of minutes but, while it was true that his opponent was a jacked up gym rat with biceps bigger than John's head, John was a lot quicker and he certainly wasn't afraid to fight dirty. He lost in the end but it was a close run thing that definitely saw John's reputation go up a couple of notches. Also, the longer the match went on, the more bets were placed and the more money the promoter earned, which filtered down to the fighters.

 

He was exhausted and beyond sore by the time he got back to his tiny rented apartment. It didn’t help that he’d developed a headache just before the fight which had grown into a full-blown migraine with each head shot his opponent managed to get in. He pulled his curtains shut, deposited his winnings into the lockbox he had hidden beneath a floorboard and fell gratefully onto his bed despite the fact that it was still only late afternoon and he hadn't managed to inspect his various injuries yet; that would have to wait until he got some sleep.

 

Hours later, John awoke with a start and a dying yell on his lips. He’d dreamed that he was watching the strange woman shoot herself again only this time he’d somehow swapped places with her at the last moment, too late to stop the momentum of his own finger from pulling that trigger.

 

He groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as he waited for his heart rate to drop to something approaching normal. He still felt exhausted but knew that he’d never get back to sleep now. Not only that but the little sleep he had managed to get had done nothing to get rid of his migraine, in fact it seemed to be worse than before he went to sleep, and his ribs were now aching in a way that told him he needed to strap them up for a few days.

 

He pushed himself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. He grabbed a bottle of painkillers from the cabinet and stuck his head under the faucet, using the water to help swallow the pills. When he stood back up, he stared with shock into the mirror as, instead of showing his own reflection, there was someone else looking back at him. It wasn’t the red haired woman or either of the two men who’d been with her. This guy looked closer to John’s age and would probably be quite attractive if he wasn’t gaping like a fish at John.

 

John lifted his hand and touched his fingers to the glass, he wasn’t sure what he expected but he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when he just felt the cool glass beneath his fingertips. The other guy shook himself out of his stupor and followed John’s example of touching, what was presumably, his own mirror but when his fingers reached the glass, it disappeared and John could actually feel the other man’s fingers against his own.

 

With a startled cry, John jumped back and slipped slightly on a discarded towel on the floor. When he regained his equilibrium and looked back at the mirror, the other man was gone and it showed John’s reflection again.

 

“What the fuck is going on?” he askedbut his reflection didn’t have an answer for him.

  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	3. For a Destination

**_ Bobby _ **

 

Bobby running late for class wasn’t unusual. Bobby being early for class? That really was. That was why some of the other students gave him weird looks as they streamed into the lecture hall where Bobby had already been sitting for the past half hour. He could blame it on that weird vision he’d had in the library the night before after drinking far too much coffee in order to stay awake and study, or the freaky dreams he’d had as a result. But Bobby had just been unable to settle all day. He had a nasty migraine that painkillers just weren’t touching and felt jumpy. He figured that he was probably coming down with some kind of bug and resolved to visit a pharmacy once the lecture was over.

 

The professor arrived and the lecture began but Bobby couldn’t concentrate on anything that was being said, instead his mind kept replaying the strange incident with the mirror before he’d left his dorm room earlier. He had no idea who the other man had been but there was something strangely familiar about him, like maybe Bobby had met him a long time ago and that’s where his overtired brain had dragged his image from. To say that he had freaked out when he thought he felt the man’s fingers brush against his through the mirror was an understatement. He’d actually yelled and caused his roommate to come running into the bathroom brandishing a baseball bat. Luckily, Nate had seen the funny side of Bobby’s exhausted delusion; even if he had serenaded Bobby with ‘Man in the Mirror’ until Bobby had been forced to flee the dorm.

 

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and Bobby turned to see a gorgeous girl with a dyed streak of white in her hair, skip down the steps of the lecture hall, laughing loudly as she went. Bobby winced at the noise and quickly looked at the professor, certain that he was about to lose his mind and yell at the girl for disturbing his lecture, only to find that the professor was staring at him expectantly. In fact most of the students were staring at Bobby too and he shifted uncomfortably, risking a glance towards the gorgeous girl only to find she was nowhere to be seen.

 

"Mr Drake, I asked if you found this lecture so boring that you couldn't even be bothered to look in my direction," the professor said with more than a touch of exasperation.

 

"N...no, Professor," Bobby stuttered nervously because this particular Professor was notorious for marking down students he decided he didn't like and Bobby really didn't want to get on his bad side. "I just thought I saw..."

 

"Are you alright, Drake?" the Professor interrupted, peering at Bobby curiously. "You look unwell."

 

Bobby paused for a second before nodding. "Actually, I think I might be coming down with something, sir."

 

"Then what are you doing here?" the Professor suddenly roared. "Do you want to infect us all? Get out, get some medicine and come back when you're not going to selfishly make the rest of us sick too."

 

Flushing with embarrassment, Bobby scrambled to shove his books back into his bag.

 

"What a jackass!"

 

Bobby tried not to jump when the gorgeous girl suddenly spoke from beside him. He didn't know where she'd reappeared from but had a sinking feeling that she was somehow connected to the mirror guy and the suicidal woman from the night before.

 

"Don't pay him any attention, sugar," she told Bobby in a strong southern accent as she followed him up back up the stairs of the auditorium. "Just go and get some chicken soup and then tuck yourself up in bed. You'll feel better in no time."

 

If nothing else, the chatter from the girl took Bobby's mind off the fact the other students were smirking and whispering about him as he skulked out of the lecture. Once he was outside and in the empty corridor, he turned to the girl.

 

"Who are you?"

 

She smiled. "My name's Rogue. Actually, it's not really Rogue, that's an old nickname 'cos I always got in trouble as a child. My actual name's Marie but that's just boring. Do you know how many Marie's there are around here? I'm going to be an actress one day and I can't have a boring name then so I've resurrected Rogue. I haven't decided on a surname yet, I'm thinking something alliterative like Rogue Rycroft or 'saint' something, maybe Rogue St Claire. Your name's 'Drake'? Like the singer?"

 

"Yes. I mean...no..." Bobby huffed. "Drake's my surname; I'm Bobby. Aaaaand I'm talking to a hallucination as if you're really here."

 

He shook his head and began to head towards the entrance to the building.

 

Rogue followed. "Actually, I'm not sure where _here_ is. One minute I was in work, taking an order from a very good looking older guy and the next I was in a room full of people talking about math."

 

Bobby looked at her again and realised that she was in the type of uniform he usually associated with diner waitresses. "Sounds like you were having more fun than I was."

 

He knew he shouldn't keep talking to a figment of his imagination but he'd already started so he might as well go all in. They'd pushed through the doors and emerged outside, which caused Rogue to look around curiously.

 

"I don't think I'm in Mississippi anymore," she muttered.

 

"Mississippi?" Bobby stopped walking and looked at her in surprise. "No, you're in Boston."

 

"Really?" Rogue looked delighted. "I've never been to Boston. Actually, I've never left Mississippi but I plan to. When I'm a famous actress, I'll travel the whole world."

 

"The whole world, huh?" Bobby smiled at her enthusiasm. "I went to Italy once with my family. But my parents didn't really like it, they thought it was ‘too foreign'. I enjoyed it though; the food was amazing."

 

"Italy? That's so cool! Did you see the Tower of..." Rogue broke off and her head swung to the side. "Hey, no! Jimmy, put that back. That is not a toy!"

 

Bobby had a brief flash of being inside a small diner and running towards a small child who'd grabbed a ceramic ornament from a shelf while his parents weren't looking, then he was back in the courtyard of the economics building. Except this time he was all alone with no Rogue in sight.

 

“I really need to get some medicine and sleep this off,” Bobby muttered to himself and headed off to find the nearest pharmacy.

 

An hour later, dosed up to the eyeballs with cold medicine and curled around a hot water bottle, Bobby gratefully sank into his mattress and closed his eyes. He reopened them a moment later to find that he was back in that decrepit room; the one that the woman had killed herself in.

 

“Great, another nightmare about the caffeine hallucination,” Bobby grumbled.

 

There was a thud from nearby and Bobby followed the sound to find a guy about his age, crouched down behind a rotting piece of furniture. He jumped up and backed away from Bobby quickly.

 

“Are you one of the soldiers?” he asked, his eyes wide. “I swear; I’m not doing anything.”

 

“What? No!” Bobby remembered the soldiers from his hallucination and shook his head vehemently. “Wait...how do you know about the soldiers?”

 

“I saw them,” the guy replied. “I was here. I saw...I saw the woman...she...”

 

“Killed herself,” Bobby supplied. “At least, I thought she did but where’s all the blood.”

 

He turned and looked at the mattress which was still in the middle of the room; it was stained and gross looking but none of those stains were blood.

 

“My thoughts exactly,” the other guy said, with a snap of his fingers as if he was channelling Gil Grissom or some other TV crime investigator. “But look at what I did find.”

 

The guy ran to a nearby chest and pushed it aside, revealing a hidey hole cut into the wall. He pulled a bag free and handed it to Bobby, who had followed him.

 

“I didn’t know what to do with it,” the guy was saying. “Should I take it? Should I leave it just in case those two men return looking for it? I thought that I’d leave it for now and I’d just finished putting it back when I heard you and then hid.”

 

Bobby crouched on the floor and opened the bag. It was mostly filled with a woman’s clothes and toiletries but at the bottom was a piece of paper. Bobby pulled it free and could see that it was actually a photograph. The edges were faded and curling as if it had been handled a lot.

 

“That’s them, right?” the guy asked and Bobby nodded.

 

They were a lot younger than they’d been in his vision, closer in age to Bobby and the guy standing beside him in this new dream, but the red haired girl in the photo was unmistakably the same woman who’d shot herself. She was smiling widely and had her arms flung around another smiling boy wearing glasses while the man on her other side looked at her with clear affection despite his obviously grumpy demeanour. It was definitely the two men who’d been with the woman at the beginning of his vision. Bobby turned the photograph over.

 

“Logan, Jean and Scott. 1986.” He read from the back. “That’s right. The man in charge of the soldiers called her ‘Jean’. I remember now.”

 

The guy with him nodded his head thoughtfully. “She told me before...well, before. She said that she was sending men to find me. Do you think she meant this Logan and Scott?”

 

Bobby blinked at him in surprise. “That’s what she said to me!”

 

“Perhaps she said it to us both but I really don’t remember you being here,” the guy replied, looking just as confused as Bobby felt.

 

“I don’t know where here is.” Bobby got a sinking feeling in his stomach as he repeated Rogue’s words from earlier. “I was just in Boston.”

 

The guy stared at him.

 

“Well, you’re not in Boston now. You’re in Westchester. In New York,” he clarified at Bobby’s blank look.

 

“Rogue said she was from Mississippi,” Bobby murmured to himself. “God knows where the mirror guy was but there was a light on as if it was night there when it was late morning with me.”

 

And now Bobby was in New York when he should be in Boston. This was feeling less and less like he was dreaming it all up and more like something being seriously wrong. Dreams and hallucinations just didn’t work this way. There was something else going on.

 

“You’ve been seeing other people too?” the other guy looked relieved. “There was this girl this afternoon. She just appeared in my house while I was gaming and started lecturing me on how to play Call of Duty, like I don’t already know how to play it, then she was gone again. Vanished into thin air.”

 

“Did she have a southern accent? With a white streak dyed into her hair?” Bobby indicated to show where the streak was but the other guy was shaking his head.

 

“No accent,” he said. “Brunette, tiny but quite scary. You’ve seen a southern girl?”

 

Bobby nodded. “Rogue. And I’m Bobby, by the way.”

 

“Doug,” the other guy introduced himself. “I think the girl I saw called herself Kitty but that can’t be a real name, right?”

 

Bobby suppressed a smile as he remembered Rogue asking if his name was Drake like the singer.

 

“I don’t know,” he replied instead. “This shouldn’t be a real place but I’m beginning to believe that if I Google it, I’ll find it.”

 

“You will. It used to be called the Xavier Mansion but now it’s just that supposedly haunted house that every town has. That’s why I recognised it from the vision...or whatever that was. My cousin dared me and a bunch of other kids to come in here one Halloween years ago,” Doug told him, again speaking quickly as if he was trying to get a tonne of information out of his head as quickly as he could; Bobby got the feeling that he always talked that way. “What should I Google? To prove that _you’re_ real.”

 

Bobby thought it over and then reeled off his cell number.

 

“Wait until morning though,” he added as he watched Doug enter the number into his own cell. “I’ve got flu or something and just took a whole lot of drugs to help me sleep through it.”

 

“Migraine?” Doug asked. "Me too. I took painkillers before I left the house."

 

Bobby's own medicine seemed to have kicked in, actually, the migraine had lessened to a small, dull throb that he could mostly ignore. But maybe physical stuff didn't travel with him when he did whatever this was; after all, he wasn't cold despite just standing there in his pyjamas. He didn’t even have any shoes on and he hadn’t shivered once since being in the mansion because he wasn’t really in the mansion, was he? He was back in his dorm, tucked up in bed.

 

“Hey, is this Boston? Am I in Boston?” Doug suddenly asked.

 

Bobby blinked up at Doug from his bed as if he’d managed to summon it, just by thinking about it. Doug was rushing about the small dorm room, touching random things and keeping up a steady stream of chatter.

 

“I can feel your things, like I’m really here. This is insane. Did it feel like this for you? Like you were really in the mansion even though you weren’t?”

 

“Aren’t you even a little bit worried about all this?” Bobby asked as he pushed himself up to sitting. “People shouldn’t be bouncing from place to place in the blink of an eye.”

 

“I guess,” Doug replied. “But it’s really cool too. It’s kind of like one of those sci fi shows but even better.”

 

As concerned as he was, Bobby couldn’t help but smile a little at Doug’s enthusiasm. “As long as it’s not random girls showing up to criticize your gaming scores?”

 

Doug grinned. “Actually, she was real cute beneath all the criticizing so even that’s pretty cool.”

 

Bobby laughed and shook his head. "You're a strange guy. You know that, right?"

 

"I'm strange?" Doug sent Bobby an incredulous and slightly hurt look. "After everything that's been happening in the past 24 hours, you're focussing on how strange I am?"

 

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," Bobby assured him with a wince. "I meant strange in a good way because you're so upbeat when you really should be freaking out like I've been. Sorry, Doug."

 

“Who’s Doug?”

 

Bobby jumped as his roommate, Nate, walked into the room. He turned back to Doug but he was gone.

 

“Another hallucination?” Nate continued, without waiting for an answer to his previous question. “You should have told me you were sick, Drake. I wouldn’t have poked fun at you earlier if I knew it was some kind of fever vision.”

 

Bobby sent him a disbelieving look and Nate grinned.

 

“Yeah, you’re right. I still would’ve,” he admitted. “Anyway, I don’t want to catch your cooties so I’m crashing in Angie’s room tonight; her roommate’s gone home for the weekend and you know what that means...”

 

“That she’s going to make you watch a romantic movie with her that’ll bore you so much you fall asleep?” Bobby asked.

 

“That only happened twice,” Nate replied flippantly but then paused in his packing and looked at Bobby with a frown. “Seriously, are you going to be alright if I go? You don’t need to go to the emergency room or anything, do you?”

 

“I’m okay,” Bobby replied. “I just need to sleep it off.”

 

“Great!” Nate said with a relieved look. “Because I’m getting laid tonight!”

 

Bobby rolled his eyes as Nate danced his way to the door. He sent Bobby a goodbye salute and left the room singing.

 

_“As I, turn up the collar on my favourite winter coat. This wind is blowin' my mind...”_

 

After Nate was gone, Bobby looked at the space where Doug had been standing, hoping to summon him again but nothing happened. So instead, he booted up his laptop and looked up Westchester, New York. After a little bit of searching through the various articles; there it was, Xavier Mansion. There was no way that Bobby could've known about that building unless it was all real, that he really had been there somehow.

 

"Jesus." He raked his fingers through his hair. "What the hell is happening to me?"

  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	4. I Realised Quickly When I Knew I Should

**_ John _ **

 

“You leaving early? I thought I might be able to talk you into going a couple of rounds later.”

 

John smiled at the promoter of that night's batch of fights, even though smiling was the last thing he felt like doing.

 

“No can do tonight, Teagan,” he said and then made a show of wincing as he patted his ribs. “I need a couple of days to heal up. Unless you sweeten the pot and let me buy you a drink afterwards, I'd risk a broken rib for a hot date with our hot organiser.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Teagan rolled her eyes at his outrageous flirting. Being one of the only women in such a male dominated territory, John was pretty sure that she’d heard every pick-up line out there. He was equally sure that she turned all of them down because she had a wife and baby back home that she doted on. Though John was one of the few people who knew that, just as she was one of the few people who knew that he was just as gay as her. There were more than a few homophobic people in the fighting scene and some fights tended to take on a very nasty edge if one of the fighters was known to be gay so John had early on decided not to advertise that fact.

 

“You’re cute but you’re not that cute,” she told him with a smile. “I hope you didn’t lose too badly yesterday.”

 

John shrugged. “Who said that I lost?"

 

She just laughed and patted his cheek. One of the things that made Teagan such a great promoter was that she knew _everything_ that went on in the scene. She probably knew the result of his match seconds after he was counted out.

 

"I can't even persuade you to ref a match before you go?" she asked and John shook his head.

 

He'd reffed a few fights for Teagan before because she liked to mix it up and he liked the extra payday but he really wasn't on his game tonight and would more than likely mess up. The lingering headache and the craziness of the night before had him more than a little bit distracted.

 

He mentally shook it off as he left the building. Blinking at the brightness outside because morning had dawned while he'd been in the darkened warehouse, John tried to decide what to do now. He should go to bed and get some sleep because he was still exhausted but he knew that if he slept, there were nightmares waiting there for him. Instead, he decided to go home, grab a book and head to a nicely sheltered cove he’d found and try to enjoy a quiet morning; maybe that would knock the strangeness of the night before out of his head and let him get some rest later on.

 

John pushed open his apartment door but instead of stepping into his living room, he stepped into a nightclub. His eyes widened in surprise and he spun around to look back out of the door but it was gone and in its place were more dancers and booths.

 

His stomach flipped because it was happening again. He really was losing his mind.

 

There was a loud burst of laughter that caught his attention and he looked at a table of drunken revellers. There was one blonde guy in particular who stood out to John, as if he'd seen him somewhere before. This guy was clearly wealthy from the clothes he was wearing and the designer watch he was flashing around. As well as with the way that he so effortlessly made himself the centre of attention as if he was always the focal point wherever he went. When the guy suddenly looked at John, John startled and then flushed at being caught staring.

 

The guy grinned sloppily at him and then climbed over the other people in the booth before weaving his way, unsteadily, towards John.

 

"Hey, man! Are you another imaginary friend?" he poked John in the shoulder as if he expected him not to be solid. "Are you a nice imaginary friend? The last guy wasn't."

 

There was a chorus of 'Warren, come back!', 'Warren, there’s no one there; you're just drunk again!' and similar statements being yelled at them from the table the guy had just left.

 

Warren waved his hand at them, dismissively, still smiling at John.

 

"See! They can't see you, just like they couldn't see 'Piotr'." He put on a deep voice and a Russian accent when he said 'Piotr' before he leaned in closer to John who recoiled from the strong alcohol breath. "He didn't like me. He was very disapproving and not fun. Are you fun?"

 

"They can't see me?" John asked, looking over at Warren's friends.

 

"Of course not, you're imaginary." Warren snorted and swayed a bit too far to one side, causing John to reach out and steady him.

 

"Uh huh," John said. "And you've been seeing other imaginary people?"

 

Warren nodded and began to count off on his fingers. "You; fun. Piotr; not fun. Hot Asian chick; very fun. Hot red head chick; very not fun...she shot herself. That's like the opposite of fun...that's..."

 

He waved his arm around as if looking for the right word to describe now not fun someone killing themselves was, while John stared at him in shock.

 

"You saw Jean too?"

 

"Jean!" Warren smacked John's chest. "That was her name! Poor Jean. Poor dead Jean in her creepy mansion. You know what's not creepy? This place! What's it called? I don't even know what it's called!"

 

"Jesus, you're so wasted," John muttered as he stopped Warren from falling again. "Okay, you don't know what this club's called, what about the city? Which city are we in? Because we're definitely not in Sydney."

 

"Pfft...no, silly. We're in Cambridge," Warren told him.

 

John frowned. "Cambridge? Which state?"

 

"England," Warren replied. "But it's not a state, it's a country. An island, really, if you count the rest of Britain..."

 

"We're in England?" John blinked at him and Warren burst out laughing.

 

"You don't know where you are? Man, you are so drunk!"

 

John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, _I'm_ the one who’s drunk. We need to get some coffee in you if I'm going to get any decent answers."

 

"I don't want coffee," Warren protested. "I want more tequila!"

 

He yelled the last part and his table of friends joined in and cheered loudly for tequila. The cheer grew and then got more and more high pitched until it became a scream. John winced at how loud it was and when he reopened his eyes he was somewhere else completely and Warren had come with him.

 

"Wha..." Warren swayed as he spun around. "Where's the nightclub gone?"

 

John ignored him and instead run across the diner he'd found himself in and pulled up short when he was able to take in the scene in front of him. A man lay unconscious on the floor and was bleeding profusely from, what looked like, several bullet wounds. A girl was kneeling next to him, with her hands pressed over the worst of the wounds, trying to help him despite the blood running down her face from a nasty gash on her forehead.

 

“Help me!” cried the girl when she spotted John and Warren. “I can’t stop the bleeding!

 

John dropped down beside her and tried to help but his hands went right through the man.

 

"Shit!" He swore. "I can't touch him! Have you called for the paramedics?"

 

The girl didn't answer, she just kept crying and kept pressing down on the man's stomach as if she could just hold in all the blood that was trying to escape but that clearly wouldn't work; the man had been shot too many times, it was a miracle that he was still breathing.

 

John gently cupped the girl's chin and turned her face to look at him. "What's your name?"

 

"Rogue," she whispered.

 

"Okay, Rogue. I'm John and this is Warren and we're going to help you but you're going to need to do all the work because we can't touch anything. Okay?"

 

Rogue gave a shaky nod and John breathed a sigh of relief that she was paying attention this time.

 

"You're going to need to call the paramedics," he told her. "Which means that you need to let him go for a few minutes."

 

"No!" She gasped, her eyes wide. "I need to keep pressure on the wounds; that's what they do on TV!"

 

"He's bleeding too much from too many wounds, doll," John told her, making sure to keep his voice calm. "If you don't call them then he's not going to make it. If you do, then you're giving him a fighting chance. Understand?"

 

She looked down at the man and then back at John as if trying to decide if he was telling the truth. Finally, she pushed herself to her feet and ran to the phone behind the counter.

 

“What the fuck is going on?” Warren asked John and John just shook his head.

 

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t understand any of this. How did we get here? Why can I touch her but not this poor bastard?”

 

Warren stared at him for a long moment. “You’re not imaginary are you? Any of you. Shit! I thought if I could just get drunk enough, it would all go away!”

 

“Sorry, man,” John said. “I don’t think any of its going away. It just seems to be getting worse; whatever the fuck it is.”

 

The girl hung up the phone and sprinted back over to the injured man, falling to her knees and taking up her previous position. She looked down at her hands, covered in blood and shaking then promptly burst out crying.

 

“Whoa, hey! I’m sure he’s going to be fine,” Warren said, looking as awkward as any guy did in the face of a sobbing woman.

 

“It should be me. I gave them all the money in from the till and then they said that they were going to shoot me anyway,” she got out between sobs. “I didn't even know that Harry was still here until he pushed me out of the way."

 

While she was talking, John noticed that it wasn't only her head that was bleeding. He'd thought that the blood stains on her uniform were from Harry but the stain on her shoulder was noticeably larger than the last time he'd looked.

 

"Rogue, are you hurt too?" he asked.

 

She blinked at him while at the same time Warren sucked in a harsh breath from where he stood behind her.

 

"Shit, I think she got shot," he said. "There's a hole in the back of her dress."

 

"What?" Rogue asked, probably in too much shock and filled with too much adrenaline to have felt much of anything.

 

John carefully reached out to her. "I'm going to take a look, okay?"

 

At her nod, he undid the top few buttons of her uniform and peeled it away from her bleeding shoulder. Sure enough, there was a small bullet wound there, bleeding sluggishly.

 

"Oh my god!" She gasped. "I felt something cut me but I thought it was just a big piece of glass."

 

She nodded behind John and he glanced over his shoulder to see the mass of shattered glass and ceramics all over the diner floor. The thieves had really done a number on the place.

 

John turned back to inspect Rogue's wound. "I think that you're going to be fine. It probably needs stitches but it looks like it went right through."

 

"And guys dig scars," Warren rushed to assure her.

 

Rogue gave an hysterical giggle-sob. They sat in silence for a long moment before she looked back at John and Warren.

 

"Who are you two?" She asked quietly. "I mean it was all fun when I was travelling to Boston and LA and I got all caught up in that but now I think that maybe I'm just losing my mind. What if all of this is in my head? Is that why you can't touch Harry?"

 

"You're not going crazy," John told her.

 

"Yeah, because if you are then we are too," Warren said. "I've been seeing people that other people can't for the past two days. And now I'm in someplace I've never been before and I'm like Patrick Swayze in Ghost."

 

Something like hope dawned in Rogue's eyes which was far preferable to the utter despair that had been there a moment ago. "You're real? You promise?"

 

"I promise," John told her and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug, being careful to avoid pulling on her shoulder. "And I'll find some way to prove it to you."

 

There was a sign on the wall with the diner's name, address and telephone number. John would never remember it all but he'd remember DineRite Diner in Mississippi and he was sure that he'd be able to use that to contact Rogue somehow.

 

They all jumped at some sudden banging.

 

“Marie? Are you in there?” Someone shouted and the girl pulled away from John.

 

“That’s the sheriff,” she said and carefully got to her feet to go and unlock the diner doors.

 

As soon as she was out of his line of sight, John found himself back in his own living room again, all by himself. He scrubbed his hand over his face and then jumped for the second time in as many minutes when his doorbell went. He opened his door, half expecting to find Warren on the other side. Instead he found himself face to face with one of the men from the original vision; one of the men who’d been with Jean.

 

“Are you going to invite me in, bub? Or are we going to gaze into each other’s eyes all day?”

  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	5. That the World was Made Up of this Brotherhood of Man

**_ Bobby _ **

 

On Saturdays, Bobby usually went home to see his family for a couple of hours. It was more out of a sense of obligation than any of them actually wanting to spend time together. Sometimes Bobby wished that he’d chosen a college out of state which would give him an excuse to only go home during vacation times but he’d committed to staying in Boston back when his parents actually did want him closer to home. Back when he, his dad and his brother had planned to keep up their regular trips to watch the Red Sox together. Back before everything had gone to hell when his brother, Ronnie, had walked in on Bobby making out with Alan Stevens, linebacker for the school football team. Of course, Ronnie had immediately tattled to their mom and dad and Bobby was suddenly the family pariah.

 

He was just glad that he’d insisted on staying in dorms back when he’d originally applied to the college; he couldn’t imagine how bad things would be if he was still living at home. Especially not with the current craziness he was experiencing. If his family reacted that badly to the fact that Bobby liked men as well as women then just imagine how they’d act if they found out he could randomly able to see people that no one else could.

 

That meant that he definitely wasn’t going home that particular Saturday. He’d rung and left a message on his parent’s answer machine saying that he’d come down with flu. He was a little sad at the relief he’d felt. He wasn’t sure if it was at the fact the machine picked up and he didn't have to talk to any of them or the fact that he was missing out on another tension filled visit; whichever one it was, it made him miss the way things used to be.

 

Bobby sighed as he realised that he’d read the same page of his textbook three times without taking in a single thing. Obviously, burying himself in his coursework wasn’t going to help distract him. He sat back in his chair and raked his fingers through his hair, grimacing as he thought over everything that had been going on. He had to get some sort of control over the jumping about or teleporting or whatever he and the other people he was seeing were actually doing, before someone else noticed. So, Bobby decided to do what he always did when he was feeling overwhelmed, he made a list. Grabbing some paper from his drawer, he wrote down everything weird that had happened in the past few days.

· Vision of Jean

· The man in the mirror.

· Rogue.

· Doug.

Then there were the early hours of that morning when Bobby had lurched out of bed and run to the bathroom where he threw up everything he'd ever eaten in his life. When he'd finally finished, he'd sat back only to find he was suddenly in a completely different bathroom, sitting next to a blonde guy while _he_ threw up and muttered about the evilness of tequila. But he wasn't quite sure how to sum that up, so he went with 'hangover that wasn't mine'. He got as far as 'hangover that wa...' before his pen stopped working.

 

"Dammit!" He yelled in frustration and threw the pen across the room.

 

He rolled his eyes when there was a knock on the door a few minutes later. It was just before 9am so, technically, it was still the weekend 'quiet hours' for the dorm and it looked like someone had complained about his over dramatic yelling. He sighed, plastered an apologetic expression on his face and went to answer the door.

 

"Hello, Bobby."

 

It wasn't the RA for the floor; it was one of Jean's friends from the mansion. Either Logan or Scott, according to the photograph he'd found.

 

Bobby just stared at him in shock for a few moments. "How do you know my name? Are you real? I mean, are you really here or is this another..."

 

"I'm really here," the guy said. "And Jean showed me who you are. Can I come in? Or maybe we could go and get a coffee somewhere? I need to explain some things to you."

 

Bobby weighed up his options and then decided that a coffee sounded like exactly what he needed.

 

He stepped out of the room. "There's a park near here that's quiet at this time of day and there's a Starbucks on the way."

 

They didn't say much to each other on the way to the park, only for the guy to introduce himself as Scott and then to take Bobby's order at the coffee shop. A mean part of Bobby was inclined to order the most expensive thing on the menu as revenge, because Scott was obviously part of whatever caused this craziness to happen to Bobby. But he couldn't bring himself to do it; Scott looked awful, like he hadn't slept for days, and Bobby remembered that he'd practically had to be dragged out of the mansion before Jean killed herself. Scott was the picture of a grieving man.

 

"This is nice," Scott said after Bobby led them to the secluded part of the park.

 

It was next to a lake and the trees created a sheltered area that hid them from the view of any joggers or dog walkers that might be using the official pathways.

 

Bobby nodded. "I come here when my roommate gets a bit too much."

 

"Right." Scott stared out at the lake while Bobby stood there awkwardly; finally, he turned back to Bobby and told him, "You are no longer just you."

 

"Okay. Well, that makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened recently," Bobby replied and Scott quirked his lips in an almost smile.

 

"Yeah, I remember how weird it all was for me when it first started," he said. "But we had Charles to help us through it. I'm afraid that you're stuck with me and Logan and I'm sorry in advance if we fuck it up but I promise that we're doing our best."

 

That didn't exactly fill Bobby with confidence and his face must have conveyed that because Scott suddenly shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

 

"Jean would've been so much better at this," he muttered and then took a deep breath. "A small section of people, you included, have a chemical called psycellium in your brain and it makes you...something more than human.

 

“More than human?" Bobby asked. "Like a superhero?”

 

Scott gave an unamused snort. “No, not like a superhero. It allows you to connect to a group of other people who also have the chemical and allows you to communicate and share ideas, emotions and even abilities with practise.”

 

“Why?” Bobby asked and when Scott looked confused, he explained. “Why now? You say that I’m different; well I wasn't different from anyone else before. Not until that night that I saw you in the mansion. You did something to me, or Jean did...I don't know who did what but I was fine and normal before that and now I'm just...I’m losing my mind.”

 

Scott's eyebrows raised in surprise at Bobby’s outburst. "No, you’re not.”

 

"No, you’re not?” Bobby stared at him incredulously. "That's all you’re going to say? Why don't you tell me how to stop this?"

 

"You can't stop it, Bobby. It's who you are," Scott told him. "It's always been who you are. It was dormant and Jean just...Charles used to call it 'giving birth'..."

 

Bobby made a face and Scott gave another one of those almost smiles.

 

"I know, that's a terrible way to describe it," he agreed. "It's more like waking you up...activating you."

 

"But why?" Bobby asked in frustration. "I didn't want anything activating, I was happy as I was."

 

Scott gave him a sympathetic look. "Because it’s who you are, Bobby. A part of you was being suppressed and that will only lead to bad things further down the road. Imagine it like a shaken bottle of soda; that gas needs somewhere to go. But it’s not contained in a bottle; it’s in your head, in your brain and it can do so much damage in there.”

 

Bobby was quiet for a moment as he thought that over. “What happened with Jean? If this is all such a good thing then why did she...do what she did?”

 

Scott paused, clearly upset at the thought of Jean’s death. "There are people out there who know about us and it scares them. We scare them and, unfortunately, their solution is to get rid of us."

 

"The soldiers at the mansion?"

 

Nodding, Scott explained, "They were some of them. And the man they work for, Stryker, he's by far the worst. He's smart, methodical and he's not going to stop until he's hunted down every one of us. Then he’ll take us apart to try and find out what makes us tick before finally putting us out of our misery. Jean knew that he would use her to find you, she saw you all when she activated you and she knew where you were. Stryker would have used any means necessary to get that information out of her and she couldn’t risk him succeeding.”

 

Scott swallowed hard and looked out over the lake, obviously taking a moment to get his emotions back under control.

 

“Don’t let her sacrifice be in vain, Bobby,” he finally said in a quiet voice. “You can learn to use your connection to the cluster, control it and then you can defend yourself and the others. If you all work together then you’ve got a fighting chance."

 

Bobby sighed, moved to stand beside Scott and looked at the view too. He wouldn’t get anywhere yelling at a broken man, he’d just feel incredibly guilty.

 

"Okay, you need to explain about the others. I've had people appearing out of thin air, I've jumped to another city..."

 

"How many people have you seen so far?" Scott asked.

 

"Not including you, Logan and Jean? Four," Bobby replied.

 

"Okay," Scott said. "There's going to be three others. There are eight people in a cluster; that's what we call the groups. You're all telepathically linked now. No matter how far away you are physically, you will always be able to talk to them and touch them as if they're standing right next to you."

 

"So, I'm not actually jumping from place to place; it's all mental," Bobby murmured.

 

He’d kind of guessed that but it was nice to have confirmation that he wouldn’t be disappearing in front of people.

 

"Your guy's definitely better at explaining this than Logan is," said a new voice.

 

"Mirror guy," Bobby said before he could stop himself.

 

Mirror guy smirked. "I usually go by John."

 

Bobby gave his name and then frowned as he caught up to what John had said. "Logan's with you? Right now?"

 

Scott straightened up at that. "Is that John? Logan made it to Australia already?"

 

John narrowed his eyes at that. "I really don't like these guys knowing so much about me."

 

Bobby confirmed to Scott that he was talking to John and then John sighed and answered the rest of the question.

 

"He showed up about midday, prowled around the apartment, drank all the beer he’d brought with him, smoked a cigar and then fell asleep," John said. "Before he passed out, he told me that I'm a sensate, there are a load of people living in my head and then wished me luck. He's a real keeper."

 

"Sensate," Bobby repeated.

 

"That's what we call ourselves," Scott said. "He's started teaching John. Good, I was worried he'd just growl and drink a load of beer."

 

John threw his hands in the air and Bobby couldn't help but laugh at the expression on his face. Then he couldn't _stop_ laughing. He knew that it was a delirious knee jerk reaction to everything that was going on but the more he thought about how ridiculous his life had suddenly become, the funnier it seemed. At first, John stared at him as if he was a crazy man but then his lips twitched too. Bobby didn't know if John was just feeling Bobby's amusement through this new telepathic link they had or if he could see the ludicrousness of the situation too, but John began to laugh as well.

 

By the time they both managed to calm down and not set each other off again, John and Bobby were collapsed against each other while Scott stared at Bobby with bemused expression. Bobby flapped a hand at him.

 

"Sorry, but it's just all so ridiculous," he said, while John giggled in his ear again.

 

"You think that I'm lying?" Scott asked and Bobby shook his head.

 

"The fact that there's an invisible guy standing next to me tells me that you're not," he replied. "It just was all a bit much, that's all."

 

"Thanks for the laugh. I think I needed that," John said from the other side of him.

 

John’s hot breath against Bobby’s cheek and the way his stubble brushed Bobby’s neck as he spoke made a shiver run down Bobby’s spine. Bobby hoped that John hadn’t noticed vanished but that disappeared when he felt John freeze for a moment before he pulled back to study him.

 

“Interesting,” he murmured and gave Bobby a knowing look.

 

Bobby flushed but he wasn’t sure if it was in embarrassment or desire, because John was definitely a good looking guy and Bobby had been single since that fateful argument with his parents.

 

“Bobby?” Scott asked and from the tone of his voice, it seemed that it wasn’t the first time. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yep.” Bobby deliberately stepped away from John and turned his attention back to Scott. “Sorry. It’s...”

 

He couldn’t think of a way to end that sentence so he just made a random gesture with his hand.

 

“Distracting,” Scott filled in with a knowledgeable nod. “Having another person in your head can definitely be difficult but it gets easier. With practise, you’ll be able to communicate with the cluster even while doing other things like driving a car. Speaking of practise, it might be a good idea to work on a few things. Get that psycellium doing it’s thing.”

 

“Psy-what-ium?” John asked and Bobby realised that he hadn’t been there for that part of the conversation.

 

He started to recount it but Scott stopped him.

 

“He’s in your head, Bobby. You don’t need to tell him out loud,” Scott said. “Instead, concentrate on the memory of us talking about it.”

 

Bobby took a deep breath and then replayed the memory in his head. He felt a little stupid but John’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

 

“Oh my god, that actually worked,” he exclaimed. “Okay, let me try.”

 

Bobby suddenly had an image in his head of John in a nightclub talking to the guy from that morning with his head down a toilet.

 

“I know him!” Bobby exclaimed. “Not know him but I managed to get his hangover this morning.”

 

John winced. “Ouch, my condolences. The guy was wasted. Although, to be fair, he did sober up a lot when we had to help Rogue.

 

Bobby frowned. “Rogue? What happened to Rogue?”

 

Just as before, John sent him the memory instead of explaining.

 

“Oh Christ,” Bobby said as he mentally watched John and the hung-over guy who’d woken him up that morning, helping Rogue after she’d been shot in her diner.

 

“What’s going on?” Scott asked, obviously picking up on Bobby’s concern.

 

Bobby quickly summed up what John had shown him about Rogue and Scott instantly looked afraid.

 

“You need to go to Rogue, now, and make sure that she’s okay,” Scott said urgently. “If she’s gone to the hospital and she’s had any scans done then Stryker could already know where she is. Close your eyes, picture her and focus on how much you want to talk to her.”

 

It was the first time that Bobby had purposely tried to travel to one of the others and it took him a couple of tries before he found himself in a hospital room with Rogue, who was sitting on the edge of the bed in a hospital gown with thick bandages covering her shoulder.

 

"Bobby?" She blinked up at him from her perch at the edge of the bed and Bobby's heart broke for her; gone was the vivacious girl he'd met yesterday to be replaced with someone who looked lost and scared.

 

He immediately sat down next to her and pulled her into his arms, where she collapsed against him and started to cry.

  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	6. For Whatever that Means

**_ John _ **

 

As soon as Bobby had mentally jumped elsewhere, John found himself back in his apartment.

 

"Fuck!" he swore. "That's getting annoying."

 

First, he'd jumped away when Rogue had to leave and unlock the diner door and now he'd jumped away just when Bobby was going to check that Rogue was okay. He wondered if he was always going to find himself back where he started once the person he was visiting left his immediate area or if it was because they were so new at this. He'd ask his supposed mentor but he could hear snoring coming down the hall from the living room.

 

"Screw this," John muttered and closed his eyes. "Focus on Rogue."

 

Nothing happened for a long moment but then John could feel the change around him as if the very air felt different.

 

“Yeah, Scott is definitely a better teacher than Logan,” John said as he opened his eyes to a hospital room.

 

Bobby jumped in surprise but John's attention was on the girl sobbing in Bobby's arms.

 

“Hey Rogue. Are you okay, doll?” he asked as he sat on the other side of her.

 

Rogue shook her head, her bottom lip trembling. “I don’t know what’s happening. Harry’s in a coma and they don't know if he's going to wake up. I fainted in the ambulance and woke up in here. At first, they said it was shock and that they wanted to keep me for a few hours to monitor me but then some doctor came and told me that they’ve found something wrong with my brain.”

 

“They took scans from you,” Bobby said with a grimace.

 

“Yeah; after I fainted, I guess,” Rogue told him. “The doctor showed them to me and said that there’s some bigwig specialist flying down here to operate on me. Why? What?”

 

Rogue obviously caught the worried look that Bobby and John shared.

 

“Do you remember Stryker? The little fat soldier that was taunting Jean that night we all saw?” John asked, sending her a mental flash of the memory, and Rogue nodded. “We think that he’s on his way here to get you. So, you need to get away from the hospital, now.”

 

Rogue pushed off the bed and backed away from them, her face pale. “But if I’m sick, maybe we should let him. He might be able to fix me or know people who can.”

 

“No, doll. We’re not letting him get you,” John told her and when she started to protest, Bobby interrupted her.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with your brain, not really,” Bobby said and John frowned at him. “It might look strange to most people but it’s normal for us. Stryker isn’t going to fix you, he’s going to study you and then use you to hunt down the rest of us.”

 

“Oh shit! Rogue can find us if she concentrates, just like we found her, and he’d use that. I’m right, aren’t I?” John caught on to what Bobby meant. "That’s why Jean...Shit!"

 

“She killed herself to protect us.” They both looked at Rogue who appeared distressed at that thought but then she swallowed hard and then nodded determinedly. “Alright. How are we going to get out? They’ve locked me in here because apparently they couldn’t risk contamination making me worse.”

 

John crossed the room to study the door. It was nothing fancy, just a standard lock. Thank god for small hospitals, there were no fingerprint scanners or even number pad locks there.

 

He patted his pockets then looked back over his shoulder at Rogue. "This looks like it should be easy to pick. I don’t suppose you have a credit card or anything?"

 

"Move aside, pretty boy. I've got this!"

 

John blinked at the girl in the eye-wateringly bright yellow jacket who appeared beside him. "Who are you? Wait...very fun, hot Asian chick..."

 

She rolled her eyes. "And who are you, guy? _Warren?_ You don't look drunk enough."

 

"That's Jubilee," Rogue said from behind them.

 

"What she said." Jubilee pointed at Rogue. "Now, do you want this door unlocked or not?"

 

John grinned at her, liking Jubilee already, and then stepped aside with a flourish.

 

Rogue walked across the room to stand beside Jubilee as she obnoxiously blew a pink bubble with her bubble gum and then suddenly Jubilee was gone. John started in surprise then realisation dawned when Rogue pulled a couple of bobby pins from her hair, knelt down and began to work on the lock. Jubilee couldn't pick the lock because she wasn't physically there. The only way that that lock could be picked is if Rogue did it, so Jubilee had somehow taken control of Rogue's body and was working through her. Genius.

 

In less than a minute, John heard a loud click as the lock disengaged and Jubilee reappeared to stand beside Rogue.

 

"I'm impressed," he told Jubilee, meaning both the lock picking and how she'd done it.

 

"Not my first time. Well, not my first time with a lock anyway." She winked at him before turning to Rogue. "Let's go, sweetie."

 

Rogue quickly changed out of the hospital gown and into her bloodstained uniform while John stuck his head out of the door to check that the corridor outside was empty. He nodded at Rogue to indicate that it was and she grabbed a large jacket from the chair, pulled it on to try and look less conspicuous and followed John out of the room. Jubilee was apparently sticking around so the four of them made their way through the floor, towards where Rogue said the stairwell would be. At every corner, John or Bobby would check to see if the coast was clear before they moved on. Unfortunately they forgot to check behind them.

 

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

 

They all spun around to see an orderly who had just exited a room with a previously closed door.

 

"You're supposed to be quarantined," he continued. "How did you get out?"

 

"It's amazing what you can do when you need a bathroom, sugar," Rogue said after a beat. "You can't just lock a girl away without letting her pee."

 

The orderly's eyes narrowed and his hand moved to the walkie talkie hanging from his belt.

 

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Rogue said as she walked towards him but her voice sounded different; it had lost its southern drawl and had raised slightly in tone.

 

The orderly, who pretty much towered over Rogue, scoffed at her words. "What exactly do you think you can do to stop me, little girl?"

 

Lightening quick, Rogue kicked him between the legs, causing him to double over with a cry. At that point she brought her knee to his face and John winced at the crunch he could hear as it impacted with his nose. The orderly let out another howl of pain which was quickly cut off when Rogue adjusted her grip on his arm, allowing her to throw him into the wall. He slid to the ground, out cold and John felt his mouth hanging open in shock.

 

Suddenly there was a small brunette girl in training gear standing next to Rogue.

 

"Kitty!" Jubilee exclaimed. "You didn't have to break the guy's nose!"

 

"Your name really is Kitty?" Bobby asked faintly but everyone ignored him as Kitty shrugged.

 

"He called me little," she said defensively. "I really don't like people picking on my size."

 

"To be fair, he was picking on Rogue's size," John pointed out.

 

"And she's taller than me," Kitty shot back, which was true.

 

Bobby cleared his throat. "Guys, we need to keep going."

 

Kitty disappeared as they started to move down the corridor again and John really hoped that he'd get to see her another time, if only to pick up some fighting tips. He was good but he'd learned everything he knew from experience, mainly from getting into trouble at home and school, obviously Kitty was professionally trained. He was particularly envious of the way she threw that guy as if he weighed half as much as he probably did, John could definitely use that skill.

 

They made it to the stairwell and ran down three flights until they reached the ground floor. Rogue opened the door a crack and looked out.

 

"We've got to get past the waiting room and reception," she whispered. "There are a lot of people out there."

 

They all craned their necks to peer over Rogue's shoulder.

 

"We need a distraction," Bobby said. "Some way to get all those people looking in another direction or even get them out of there completely."

 

John was still standing very close to Rogue and suddenly registered something.

 

"Do you smoke?" he asked, sniffing her. "That jacket smells of cigarettes."

 

Rogue looked taken aback by his question. "No. But this belongs to the Sheriff; he put it on me at the diner. He smokes...like a chimney, actually."

 

John had an idea. "Please tell me that there's a lighter in the pocket."

 

Rogue reached into the pocket and showed him a cheap plastic lighter that had seen better days but it should still work.

 

"Okay, I'm going to try something," he said and then closed his eyes to concentrate.

 

If Jubilee and Kitty could take over Rogue in order to get her to do things she normally wouldn't be able to do, then John should be able to do the same.

 

Taking some deep breaths and picturing what he wanted to achieve in his mind, John managed to merge with her the way the girls had. It was a very strange feeling to be himself one moment and then not in the next. It wasn't as if he suddenly felt a little shorter or his centre of gravity was thrown off because he now had boobs; he still felt like him and when he looked down his hands were still his own but skin felt stretched as if he didn't quite fit. He instinctively knew that he wasn't in his own body and it was all very unsettling.

 

"Here goes nothing," he said and pulled a cardboard sign off the back of the door.

 

He boosted himself up on top of the railing and, balancing very carefully, he set the corner of the sign on fire. Then he held the sign up above his head and let the smoke drift up towards the sprinkler embedded in the ceiling above them. A few minutes later the sprinkler burst into action.

 

The sign was quickly extinguished in the water spraying down on them and John jumped back down to the floor before stepping back out of Rogue's body. She grinned at John, pushed her wet hair out of her face and reopened the stairwell door to peek out again.

 

The fire alarm was blaring and sprinklers were soaking everyone and everything in sight. The people from the waiting room were running out of the main doors and the hospital workers were rushing about, either making sure that the visitors were following evacuation procedures or covering the computers to stop them getting wet. No one noticed a figure in an oversized jacket with their hood pulled up to cover their face, sneak past reception and then walk outside with the rest of the fleeing visitors. They certainly didn't notice that same figure stroll almost nonchalantly through the gathering crowd and away from them, up the main street and then duck into an alley only minutes before a group of ominous looking black SUVs pulled up outside the hospital.

  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	7. And so I Cry Sometimes When I'm Lying in Bed

**_ Bobby _ **

 

Once Rogue was safely away from Stryker, Bobby could relax a little. She obviously couldn't go home because Stryker would have found out exactly who she was and where she lived pretty quickly. She had to get out of town so she emptied her bank account and bought herself a bus ticket out of Mississippi. Bobby and Jubilee had a brief argument over whether Rogue should come to Boston or go to LA but Jubilee and LA won when she pointed out that Bobby couldn't really hide anyone in a shared dorm room.

 

The rest of the week, Bobby spent all his free time learning what it meant to be a Sensate. Specifically practising this new ability to mentally travel to where a cluster member was; Scott told him that it was called 'visiting'. As Scott had, rightfully, pointed out, he'd been gone for far too long while helping Rogue. If Scott hadn't been watching over him, his body would have been exposed and entirely vulnerable to anyone who happened across him.

 

The trick, apparently, was to find a happy medium between being completely in his own body and completely out of it. He should still be able to control what his body was doing even while 'visiting' one or more of the others. The balance definitely wasn't an easy thing to learn though and took a lot of training. Luckily because of Scott helping Bobby and Logan helping John, the training was going a lot quicker than Bobby suspected it normally would be. Then he and John pooled their new knowledge with the rest of cluster which meant that he got to spend a lot of time with them all. He visited Rogue and Kitty in LA, and actually got to meet Warren when his head wasn't stuck in a toilet. He'd visited Doug (as well as chatted to him on the phone) and watched Kitty practising ballet in the morning then martial arts in the evening. He'd even finally got to meet Piotr, a soft spoken Russian farm worker and final member of the cluster. But he didn't get to talk to him as often as he'd like for the same reason that visits with and from Warren and John were less regular than the others; because they were in vastly different time zones.

 

If he was being honest with himself, he was a little disappointed that he hadn’t got to see more of John. He was clearly attracted to the other man but he also just liked him. He liked the snarky comments and smirks, the kind way he'd dealt with Rogue and then that flash of brilliance to set off the sprinklers and get her out of the hospital.

 

“Can you stop sighing, please? You’re putting me off,” Kitty complained as she gracefully moved through a complicated routine in an empty dance studio.

 

Bobby poked his tongue out at her from his preferred study table at his college library.

 

“Nothing puts you off,” he whispered. “Not even that time Jubilee sneezed in your face.”

 

“I may have had my face sneezed on,” Kitty was saying. “But at least I didn’t accidentally visit someone during their...personal, private time.”

 

Bobby flushed at that particular memory. Warren hadn’t been bothered in the slightest that someone saw him jerking off but Bobby had been mortified that he’d intruded on such a private moment. There was a full bodied laugh that automatically made Bobby duck his head, even though he knew no one else in the library would be able to hear it.

 

“I did not know of this,” Piotr said from a darkened bedroom where he sat drawing in a sketch book. “Why did you not tell me this story before, Kitty?"

 

Bobby’s eyebrows shot up as Kitty actually stumbled a little and blushed when Piotr started talking. Maybe he wasn’t the only one harbouring a little crush on one of their cluster members. Not that he had a _crush_ on John, he just _liked_ him.

 

Kitty and Piotr both faded away but not before Bobby could hear them discussing the sketch Piotr was working on. He smiled as he felt a wave of happiness from the both of them but the smile faded when he checked his watch and realised that he should finish up his studying and head out to visit his family.

 

He gave a customary knock on the back door before letting himself in, a habit from childhood that he’d never grown out of.

 

“Bobby,” his mother gave him a strained smile as he entered the kitchen. “You’re feeling better then?”

 

Bobby nodded. “Just a touch of flu. I got over it pretty quick.”

 

His mother busied herself with making their weekly Saturday brunch. “That’s good. We would’ve called to check how you were but...well, you’re a grown up now. You can obviously take care of yourself.”

 

Bobby pushed down the spike of hurt at the matter of fact way she’d said that and tried not to think about how she almost certainly would’ve fussed over him and called him every day if she’d still been unaware of his bisexuality.

 

“I hope that you didn’t miss many lectures,” Bobby’s dad said, without looking up from the paper. “We’re not paying for college so you can become one of those kids who drink all night, never go to classes and crash out instead of graduating.”

 

Bobby just kept repeating to himself that none of it mattered because he hadn’t actually been ill. But he still didn’t know how it had come to this; how his dad could act as if he didn’t know Bobby at all. Bobby had always worked hard to maintain good grades and was the guy most likely to be designated driver. Being attracted to men hadn’t suddenly made him someone else but, apparently, his parents believed that’s exactly what had happened.

 

His mother handed him a plateful of food so Bobby just ignored his dad’s comment and sat down to eat. There were no questions about how each other's weeks had gone or any sharing of gossip, instead there was a tension filled silence broken only by the squeak of cutlery on china. Finally, Bobby couldn’t take it anymore.

 

“Where’s Ronnie?” he asked after his younger brother.

 

“Oh, he’s out with his new girlfriend,” his mother said and became more animated than she’d been since Bobby had arrived. “She’s a cheerleader on the school squad so he’s gone to watch her practise. You probably remember her; the Guthrie's daughter?”

 

“Ashley Guthrie?” Bobby asked incredulously. “Wasn’t she one of that group of girls who bullied Serena Banks into dropping out? I thought you called her ‘despicable’.”

 

“Youthful hijinks,” his mother replied, dismissively and to Bobby’s growing disbelief. “She’s grown out of all that and become a lovely young woman.”

 

“And at least she _is_ a woman,” his dad muttered in a disgusted voice; quietly but not quietly enough to stop Bobby from hearing.

 

Bobby stared at his father, the man who had always told Bobby to be himself and follow his heart, as he turned the page of his newspaper, apparently unconcerned with how much hurt he was causing his son with his attitude change. _Be yourself and follow your heart, as long as it’s in the way we’d prefer._

 

Bobby dropped his knife and fork onto his plate with a clutter and pushed back his chair.

 

“Excuse me,” he said tightly and quickly left the room before he did something he’d regret.

 

He practically ran up the stairs to his bedroom, shut the door and leaned against it. He screwed his eyes shut and concentrated on his breathing, trying not to yell or cry or punch something really hard in order to distract himself from his emotions.

 

“Wow, your dad’s a real dick,” John said.

 

Bobby gritted his teeth. Of course, one of John’s rare visits would be to witness this.

 

“He should get together with my old man; they could set up a club or something,” John continued.

 

Bobby shook his head, his eyes still closed, because this wasn’t helping him at all. Something John obviously noticed because there was a soft ‘hey’ and suddenly hands were covering his own and forcing them out of the tight fists he’d been holding them.

 

“How can they be like this?” Bobby whispered raggedly. “They hate me now, but I haven’t changed. I’m still me.”

 

“They’re small minded idiots,” John said. “I’m sorry, Bobby, but they are.”

 

Bobby automatically wanted to protest but he knew that it was true. There was a reason that Bobby had hidden his bisexuality for as long as he had and that was the whispered conversations and head shakes over any people in the neighbourhood who didn’t conform to his parents’ vision of normal.

 

He never thought that it would be this bad though. “They’re supposed to love me no matter what.”

 

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that not all parents are automatically hardwired to love their kids,” John said, sadly. “Shit. That’s not the right thing to say, is it?”

 

Bobby gave an unamused snort that came out sounding closer to a sob than he’d like.

 

John let go of Bobby’s hands and cupped his face. “This isn’t on you, Bobby. You’ve done nothing wrong and if they can’t see what a great guy you are, it’s their loss.”

 

_Their loss._

 

That was what resonated with Bobby because John was right. They _had_ lost Bobby; he couldn’t keep doing this, he couldn’t keep sitting through the awkward brunches and snide remarks from his parents or the all out homophobic insults from his brother when he actually bothered to show up. Bobby loved his family and he’d kept showing up every week in the hope that they’d get past this and things could, at least try and get back to normal. But as the months passed, it became less and less likely that was going to happen. Bobby loved them but he really didn’t like them anymore.

 

With the realisation that he was done with them, a strange sense of relief washed over Bobby. It was like a weight had been lifted because he wasn’t going to do this to himself anymore.

 

“Thank you,” he murmured to John.

 

“No need to thank me; it’s all true,” John told him and Bobby finally opened his eyes to look at the other man.

 

John was giving him a smile that warmed something inside of Bobby. He suddenly became aware that John still had Bobby’s face cradled in his hands and they were standing very close together. The moment felt very intimate and Bobby latched onto it, desperate to feel some affection after having to deal with the coldness of his parents.

 

Moving on instinct, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to John's. He felt John tense and immediately called himself a fool. Just because John helped him that didn't mean anything; he'd have done it for any of the cluster. And the intimacy was already there, a result of sharing each other's minds or souls or whatever it was. Bobby had read too much into things because of his crush - yes, fine, it was a crush - and now he'd ruined things with John just like he'd ruined things with his family.

 

Flushing with embarrassment, Bobby pulled away only for John to slip one of his hands around to the back of Bobby’s neck to haul him back in. He licked along the seam of Bobby's lips and, with a low groan, Bobby opened his mouth and let him in. He didn't know if it was because they were mentally connected or if it was just them but it was the most intense kiss that Bobby had ever experienced. The world narrowed down to just the two of them, no bigoted parents, no cluster; just this. Electricity sizzled over Bobby's skin as he pulled John closer, pure want making his arms clumsy but John didn't seem to care, moving until they were pressed together.

 

"Wow," John panted when they broke apart. "That was..."

 

"Yeah," Bobby agreed. Awareness began to seep back in and he frowned at the sound of the sea lapping against the shore. “Where are you?”

 

“On the beach,” John replied, obviously. “A friend is throwing a party but I felt you getting upset so I wandered away to a quieter area so we could talk.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Bobby told him, with a wince. “I didn’t mean to ruin your fun.”

 

John gave him a slow smile. “Do you really think that this is ruining my fun?"

 

He punctuated 'this' by lightly thrusting against Bobby whose eyes fluttered shut and head fell back at the pleasure that shot through him. He heard John make a small, strangled sounding noise before he felt John's lips on his throat, kissing and nipping lightly.

 

A car door slammed and was followed by the unmistakable sound of Bobby's brother yelling goodbye to someone.

 

"Shit!" Bobby cursed.

 

"What?" John asked, lifting his head to look at Bobby.

 

The slightly dazed look in the other man's eyes filled Bobby with regret because he'd love nothing more than to pour all his efforts into seeing just how dishevelled he could get John looking. But this wasn't the time and it definitely wasn't the place.

 

"My brother's home," Bobby told him. "Which means that it's time for me to leave."

 

"Shit!" John echoed. He brushed a kiss across Bobby’s lips. "Another time?"

 

Bobby grinned with pleasant surprise because a part of him had believed John was just caught up in the moment and hearing that he did want to try this again buoyed Bobby through what he was about to do.

 

John disappeared, back to his party no doubt, and Bobby crossed the bedroom to his closet. Fishing out an old battered rucksack that had seen better days, he began to collect items from around the room; the type of stuff that he hadn't wanted to take to college with him in case they got damaged, or things that weren't important enough to take with him but that still meant a lot to him. Basically, the things that he didn't want to lose if he never came back.

 

Once the bag was filled, he pulled it onto his back and took one last look around before he headed downstairs.

 

"Oh, look. The fag's here," Ronnie sneered when Bobby walked into the kitchen.

 

"Actually, the fag's leaving," Bobby shot back. He looked at his parents, still sitting at the table. "I think we all know that I'm not welcome here so I won't be back next weekend. You know where I am if you change your mind."

 

"Not likely," Ronnie snorted but the fact that their parents didn't say a word and wouldn't even meet Bobby's eyes, spoke volumes.

 

Bobby had thought that John had left but he felt John's hand against the small of his back, bolstering him.

 

"Fuck 'em, Bobby. They're not worth it," John told him.

 

"He's right," Jubilee agreed. "You deserve better than this."

 

Rogue and Jubilee were sitting on a couch in their apartment and Rogue got up to wrap her arms around Bobby, dropping her head to his shoulder.

 

"You did so much for me, I can't stand to listen to the way this asshole talks to you." She gestured at Ronnie. "I know he's your brother but he's a complete dickwad!"

 

Encouraged by the affection he could feel from, not only the three sensates there with him, but from the others too, Bobby turned and left his childhood home without looking back.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	8. Just to Get it all Out, What's in my Head

**_ John _ **

 

There was no doubt in John’s mind that family had an unparalleled ability to fuck someone up. John’s dad had done it with his fists and his mum with her blank stares, and now he'd had to watch as Bobby's family broke his heart. John had always been so envious of the white picket fence families with their perfect houses and perfect lives but having witnessed the way that Bobby’s family had turned on him, John had to wonder if there was actually such a thing as a decent family.

 

He walked back up the beach towards the bonfire that Roman and his friends had built and sighed when Warren suddenly fell into step beside him.

 

"You have to let me hang out with you," Warren said in lieu of hello. "All my friends are staying home to study for their exams and it's putting a real dampener on my social life."

 

Speaking of having fucked up parents, Warren fell into the category too. Although his was down to neglect; his dad barely acknowledged him and instead left him to be raised by various nannies before shipping him off to boarding schools. Warren had told him that he'd bought Warren's way into the prestigious Judge Business School in Cambridge purely for the regard he would gain from his peers to have a son at such a prestigious college. He hadn't even asked if Warren had wanted to go there (which he hadn't) and certainly didn't bother to check if Warren had the grades and intelligence to get in all by himself (which he had). Warren had reacted by taking on the mantle of the stereotypical spoiled rich boy who'd rather get wasted than do something with his life.

 

"I would've thought that your face would be putting a dampener on your social life," John snarked and then laughed when Warren clutched his hands to his heart as if wounded.

 

“Why do you keep pretending that I’m not the prettiest in the cluster?” Warren asked plaintively.

 

John snorted in amusement and Warren grinned at him. Despite acting the fool, Warren really was super smart and didn’t need to do as much studying as his friends did; that was why he was so bored and had spent the past few days bouncing around the group of sensates looking for fun things to do.

 

"Soooooooo, what's going on in Australia tonight?" Warren asked, slinging an arm around John's shoulders. "Beach party? It looks like a beach party."

 

"Actually, I was thinking of heading home," John said and Warren groaned.

 

"No, you can't. You have to let me live vicariously through you," Warren told him, causing John to burst out laughing.

 

" _You_ , of all people, don't have to live vicariously through anyone, rich boy," he replied.

 

Warren shrugged, not even bothering to dispute that.

 

"Okay but we should still stick around and have some fun. Think of it as one of those bonding experiences that Scott told Bobby that we need to do but an actually enjoyable one." He poked John in the stomach. "Besides, we need to get you laid. You're still wound up from Bobby, I can feel it."

 

John sent him an incredulous look. "Were you perving on us? I thought we all had an understanding about that."

 

They'd all discovered fairly quickly that they could feel heightened emotions from other members of the cluster. That included feeling when one of them, usually Warren and sometimes Jubilee or Piotr, had sex. It was like a low level hum beneath John's skin, something he could easily ignore and, as it tended to leave him in a good mood, was something he didn't really mind.

 

Warren rolled his eyes. "It was kind of difficult to tune out when I was getting feedback from two of you at once."

 

"Shit!" John came to halt which caused Warren to stumble. "I didn't even think of that."

 

"It's not a bad thing on my end, John. Believe me." Warren winked at him and John just shook his head; the man was insatiable. "What was it like for you though? I mean, obviously it was good but did the sensate thing add anything? Could you feel yourself kissing Bobby and also feel what Bobby felt? Oh wow, could you feel yourself being kissed by you? That's kind of weird but also...intriguing."

 

"So, you want to make out with yourself is what I just got out of that crazed rambling," John told him.

 

Warren nodded thoughtfully. "Actually, yeah. It would be an experience."

 

John started to chuckle but it trailed off when Warren pinned that thoughtful gaze on him.

 

"No!"

 

Warren looked entirely too innocent as he moved closer to John. "What?"

 

"You know what!" John replied. "You aren't going to use me to try out your new self-kissing kink."

 

"You kissed Bobby," Warren pouted.

 

"And I don't want him to get the wrong idea about that," John told him. "He's had a shit enough day already."

 

Bobby clearly had a case of low self esteem thanks to what his family had put him through, the surprise in his face when John had asked to continue their making out another time had confirmed that suspicion.

 

"Right, you don't want him thinking that you're just working your way through the cluster. That won't make him feel any better." Warren looked thoughtful. "What if I go and kiss him too? That way I get to test what it feels like and we're showing him double the love."

 

John frowned, very unhappy with that idea. Quite frankly the kiss that he'd shared with Bobby had been amazing; he’d never felt anything like it. He certainly hadn’t seen anything as gorgeous as a turned on Bobby Drake and he wasn't sure that he wanted to share that even with someone else from the cluster.

 

Warren's laughter pulled John's attention back to him and the shrewd expression he was suddenly wearing.

 

"You should see how pissed off you look right now," Warren chortled. "You really like him, huh?"

 

There was something about Bobby that had drawn John in from the start; there had always been a definite attraction there but when John had also found himself idly wondering what Piotr looked like naked and even just how bendy Kitty was after all that ballet training, he'd assumed that it was a cluster thing. Sure, he did enjoy visiting with Bobby a bit more than the others and got frustrated that he couldn't do it as often as he'd like but that was just because he and Bobby got each other, right?

 

Maybe Warren was onto something.

 

"I don't know if I really like him," John replied, slowly. "But I do _like_ him."

 

Warren raised an eyebrow at John, still looking amused at John's small attack of jealousy. John kicked some sand at him in retaliation and they had just resumed walking towards the party when John had a sudden idea.

 

"You know who you should ask to help with your kissing tests? Rogue," he said.

 

They’d all agreed that Rogue should lie low for a couple of months after Doug had used his mad computer skills and discovered that she was now wanted by the police in connection with the shooting at the diner. It was obviously a ploy for Stryker to get his hands on her but it meant that her face would be plastered across most law enforcement systems. Hopefully, once some time had passed, her BOLO would be pushed to one side in favour of more urgent cases but in the meantime, Rogue was stuck in Jubilee’s apartment and unable to go outside. She was going more than a little stir crazy so if anyone would love to make out with someone just for the hell of it, it would be Rogue.

 

Warren stared at him. "Why didn't I think of that before?"

 

Then he was gone without so much as a goodbye and John couldn't help but chuckle. He was completely unsurprised when, less than ten minutes later, he felt phantom caresses and that buzz that signalled a cluster mate fooling around with someone. Warren was right; it did feel more intense with two of them. Suddenly John didn't want to skip the party, he was feeling far too good and high on life, so he grabbed a soda from the ice bucket as he reached it, lit up a cigarette and joined in with the beach revelries.

 

He woke up late to the sound of someone angrily clearing their throat over and over.

 

"You should really get some lozenges for that," John muttered, pulling his pillow over his head in the hopes that Logan would just _go away_.

 

The pillow was unceremoniously pulled away and thrown across the room.

 

"You were supposed to be ready for training an hour ago," Logan told him.

 

John pushed himself up on his arms and glared. "I was up late. We've been training all week; I needed a night off."

 

"Oh well, that's okay. You needed a night off. Why didn't you say so?" Logan replied in a sugary sweet voice. "We'll just tell Stryker that when he shows up and you're totally unprepared."

 

John huffed. "Technically, I was actually training last night...or this morning...early this morning. Some of the others 'visited' and, you know, we bonded and shit."

 

Apparently, the good feelings from Warren and Rogue's experimentations, as well as the leftover buzz from John and Bobby, had everyone in a party mood. As John was the only one actually at a party, Piotr, Kitty, Jubilee and Doug had shown up and the five of them had danced the rest of the night away.

 

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, " _Bonded and shit_ ; fucking kids!"

 

"Look, man. I don't know what you want from us!" John snapped. "We're trying! We've got Scott telling us that we have to bond to be effective but now you're all pissed at us for doing just that! Why don't you and Scott have your own little cluster pow wow and get on the same page?"

 

The two of them stared at each other for several minutes before Logan quietly said, "We're not from the same cluster."

 

"What?" John frowned.

 

"Me and Scott, we're not from the same cluster," Logan told him. "My cluster...they died. A long time ago."

 

John swore under his breath. "I'm...I'm sorry, man."

 

Logan shrugged, trying to look nonchalant but John could see the hurt in his eyes. "Like I said, it was a long time ago. Anyway, me and Scott...we don't like each other all that much. We don't have the connection a cluster has with each other, we just happened to love the same woman and now that she's gone..." He sighed, pain flashing across his face. "We've been avoiding having to deal with each other but, you're right, we need to sort out how to train you lot properly otherwise we're putting you directly in Stryker's hands."

 

It was the most that Logan had said in one go since he'd arrived on John's doorstep and there was a lot to unpack there. John didn't really know what to say but he was saved from saying anything by Logan abruptly leaving the room, presumably to speak to Scott.

 

John dragged himself out of bed, got dressed and headed to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. He'd just poured himself a cup and sat down at the table when Logan reappeared, pouring some coffee of his own and settling across the table from John.

 

"Apparently, I should ask if you have any questions," he grunted, looking like he was barely refraining from rolling his eyes.

 

"Wow, talking's not really your thing, is it?" John said and Logan snorted.

 

"I'm more of a take action sort of guy." He pulled his hand into a fist and John rolled _his_ eyes.

 

"Okay, question one...if you and Scott aren't in the same cluster, how can you talk to each other?" John asked. "Assuming that you're not sneakily doing it by phone."

 

John had the phone numbers of all his cluster logged into his phone under code names, just in case he ever needed to use them. Doug liked to send them all gifs that he thought were funny but apart from that, they all tended to stick to the mental connection.

 

Logan looked puzzled. “If two sensates from different clusters make actual eye to eye contact then they can' visit' each other from then on; but don't you already know that? Scott's physically met the college kid, right? So they can 'visit' each other now.”

 

“Bobby’s never mentioned Scott 'visiting' him,” John told him with a frown. “I’m sure he would’ve said something if he had. Actually, I don’t think that he’s even seen Scott in person for a few days.”

 

Logan grunted unhappily at that and John was sure that he was going to grill Scott on it later.

 

“Scott should have told Bobby this shit; it’s important,” he said. “Stryker has a sensate working for him...”

 

“What?” John was shocked. “Why would a sensate work for someone who’s hunting other sensates?”

 

"Fucked if I know," Logan said with an edge of a growl. "Blackmail maybe. Or money. Maybe she's just an evil bitch but we had a close call with Stryker's team about a year ago. Jean accidentally looked right at her and, boom, she was in Jean's head. Just like that. Jean, she was one of the strongest people I've ever known and she managed to train herself to block the bitch out; it took a lot out of her but it worked most of the time. Then when Jean woke you and your cluster up, it was just too much and she couldn't block her out any more. That's how Stryker found us that night."

 

“Shit...” John said quietly, the idea of another sensate wilfully hunting them down and utilising their own abilities against them felt like a kick to the gut.

 

Logan nodded and they both sat in silence for a moment.

 

“My point is that if this sensate makes eye contact with you, then she’ll be able to 'visit' you and find out where you are,” Logan said.

 

“How will I know who she is?” John asked. “I can’t just avoid making eye contact with everyone.”

 

“You’ll know,” Logan told him. “There’ll be a feeling, like a charge in the air. That’s how you can tell if a sensate from another cluster is nearby.”

 

“I didn’t feel that when you showed up,” John pointed out and Logan gave him a condescending smile.

 

“That’s because you’re a baby sensate and the feeling would’ve been too subtle to pick up on. Now, it will be as obvious as a punch in the face.” As he said that, Logan’s eyes lingered on the fading bruises on John's face. “Look how far your sensate instincts have come along so far.”

 

It was true; they’d all become loads better at the cluster thing. They no longer had to be in the line of sight of the person they were 'visiting', which was why Rogue had taken to sleeping in their beds with them when her claustrophobia got to be too much. And it was getting easier and easier to be able to be in two places at once, doing two different things. No one had tried the 'visiting' while driving a car trick that Scott had mentioned yet though.

 

The best bit had been when they figured out how to have conversations with each other in public without it seeming like they were talking to thin air. That definitely stopped a lot of strange looks being sent their way.

 

“That’s enough talking for now,” Logan said, dragging John from his thoughts. “It’s time for training.”

 

“Alright,” John agreed now that he was more awake. “What part are we working on today? Control again?”

 

“No sensate stuff today. We’re working on this,” Logan reached across the table and flicked the bruise along John’s cheekbone. “If you’re going to fight, you really need to learn how to duck a punch better, kid.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	9. And I, I am Feeling a Little Peculiar

**_ Bobby _ **

 

Bobby had had a very up and down sort of day. There’d been the thing with his parents juxtaposed with that spine tingling kiss with John. From the loss of one family when he walked out of that house to the acceptance and love of his new family; his cluster.

 

He’d headed back to his dorm with his bag full of stuff to find a note from Nate telling him that he’d gone camping and wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. For some reason, that, of all things, had made everything hit him. He was alone. He’d turned his back on his family and now he was going to have to survive by himself. He didn’t even know if they were going to continue putting money in his account for appearances sake (he was pretty sure that his mom wasn’t going to want to let any family rift be seen and gossiped about by the rest of the neighbourhood) or if they were going to completely cut him off and pretend that he didn’t exist.

 

He decided to visit student services to find out what his options were and spent the rest of the day simultaneously researching the information that he got on financial aid and trawling the internet for a part time job. His bad mood kept getting lifted, however, by Warren and Rogue kissing up a storm, John’s clear amusement about that for some reason and then by the impromptu dance party that John, Jubilee, Piotr, Kitty and Doug had on John’s beach.

 

So, yeah, an up and down sort of day.

 

“You need to relax and watch a movie,” Doug told him as he walked back to the dorm.

 

Doug was in his bedroom, perusing his DVD collection for something they could watch.

 

“If you make popcorn then count me in too,” Jubilee said and Doug grinned at her.

 

“Ooh, what are we watching,” Rogue dropped onto the overstuffed sofa with a contented sigh. “I vote for something with Vin Diesel in it. I've always wanted to be in a movie with Vin Diesel although I'd probably spend the entire shoot staring at his arms.”

 

Bobby reached his dorm room, stashed his research in the desk drawer and then simultaneously laid down on his bed and jumped onto Doug’s sofa next to Rogue.

 

“Do you have Highlander or Robocop or something eighties?” he asked Doug and laughed when the girls booed his movie picks.

 

They did, however, agree with the eighties idea and they ended up watching The Breakfast Club. Rogue knew every line and would silently say them along with the movie, her eyes wide and fixed on the screen. It was kind of adorable really. Doug and Bobby loudly quoted the famous lines, getting a smack each from Rogue when they accidentally got the Barry Manilow line wrong. Then Jubilee dragged them all up to dance along with the infamous dance scene and Bobby genuinely loved them all for making such an effort to cheer him up.

 

"So...you and Warren?" Bobby raised his eyebrows at Rogue as the end credits rolled and Jubilee and Doug _'Hey! Hey! Hey!'_ -ed loudly to the theme song.

 

She smacked his arm. "Don't give me that look. It was all your fault."

 

"Yeah, you and John started it all. Hooo baby, that was hot!" Jubilee dramatically fanned herself and Bobby blushed even as he chuckled.

 

Doug perked up. "Are we all making out with each other now because Bobby and John did? Because you can definitely count me in with that plan."

 

"Then you should talk to Warren, he'll be more than happy to accommodate you, sugar. He's 'experimenting with the bond'." Rogue told him, making finger quotes.

 

Jubilee snorted. "I think that he's just trying to get us all to participate in some sort of cluster orgy."

 

Rogue hummed in agreement. "Probably. That boy has no shame. Really great kisser though."

 

Jubilee and Doug both looked intrigued and Bobby had the feeling that Warren would be getting a couple more volunteers for his experiments.

 

"I was only the second choice," Rogue was saying. "He tried to talk John into it first but he turned Warren down flat."

 

"Because Bobby's already got a claim on him?" Doug asked.

 

"I don't have a claim on anyone," Bobby denied with a shake of his head. "Least of all John Allerdyce."

 

They all turned to look at him with varying degrees of disbelief.

 

"Look, Bobby, that kiss I had with Warren yesterday was pretty damn great but it was still nowhere near what I felt coming off you and John yesterday morning," Rogue told him. "You two have got the whole electric attraction thing going on."

 

Bobby blinked at them, he hadn't realised that the rest of them had been able to feel it so strongly. "Was it really that bad?"

 

" _Bad?_ Oh no, it was definitely not bad, Bobby Boy," Jubilee laughed. "I think we all enjoyed the buzz we got from it for the rest of the day."

 

He groaned and dropped his head into his hands with a sort of pleased embarrassment while the others continued to gently poke fun at him. When they began to contemplate what it would be like for them with a John, Bobby and Warren threesome, Bobby decided it was time for him to leave. The three others jeered and teased him about being a spoilsport but as he left he could hear Jubilee turn her attention to trying to teach Rogue and Doug how to speak Mandarin so he knew that they weren't really mad.

 

It wasn't all that late yet and Bobby could hear a frat party going on in the distance, it was a Saturday night after all; although it felt a lifetime since that morning. He idly considered heading to the common room to see what was happening but he was too comfortable to move. Instead he decided to visit the person who'd been on his mind all day.

 

Except he didn't appear on another darkened beach or in a crowd of people watching a fight in an empty warehouse or even in John's apartment. Instead he found himself crouched down in a tiny and dark room. There was a sliver of light coming from beneath the door and the shadow of someone moving outside.

 

Bobby jumped as something crashed against the door and a clearly drunken voice yelled out in a broad Australian accent, "I'll fucking find you, you little shit!"

 

There was a small sob from next to him, almost too quiet for Bobby to hear, and he turned to see a young child huddled in the corner, trying to make himself as small as possible. Bobby's heart broke because, even in the tiny amount of light they had, he could see that the child was a much younger John.

 

Bobby didn't know how he'd fallen into this memory but somehow he was sure that it was actually a memory, one from John's childhood. He remembered the crack John had made that morning about his 'old man' being a dick and, as he listened to the tornado of rage happening outside the door, Bobby thought that might just be the understatement of the century. He tried to hold John's hand and offer some comfort but his hand passed right through him and Bobby realised that he was only a spectator there. That didn't stop him from trying to push away John's dad when the door was finally ripped open and John was dragged out. He yelled and cursed at the man, to no avail; it didn’t even manage to drown out the sound of John’s screams and the sickening thuds of fists hitting flesh.

 

He was still yelling when he suddenly dropped out of the memory and found himself standing in the corner of John's bedroom. John was sat up in the bed, breathing hard, clearly having just woken up from the nightmare, and was staring at Bobby in shock.

 

"Did you just...were you...were you in my dream?" John asked Bobby who nodded.

 

"I didn't mean to. I didn't know we could do that. I'm so sorry," Bobby told him.

 

John looked away, swallowing convulsively and obviously trying to get himself back under control. Bobby wavered; should he go and try to comfort John or had he already overstepped his bounds?

 

Ultimately, Bobby's innate need to look after people won and he crossed the room in a few strides to sit on the bed beside John. When John didn't immediately tell him to fuck off, Bobby began to rub his hand up and down John's back in soothing strokes.

 

"I don't always have them," John said quietly. "The nightmares. I'm not some delicate flower haunted by my childhood or anything. I just...Logan was training me in fighting today, basically by trying to hit me as hard as could while I ducked out of the way, and it brought back some bad memories, that's all."

 

"I don't think anyone would accuse you of being a 'delicate flower', John," Bobby told him, equally quietly. "We all have bad days."

 

John nodded but clearly didn't believe it so Bobby caught him by the chin and gently lifted his face so they could look each other in the eye.

 

"You've already seen my bad day and you have no idea how much you helped me this morning...well, yesterday for you, I guess. Without what you said, I think that I would've just kept going back to that house every Saturday and it would've got worse every time." Bobby said. "You helped me earlier, let me help you now."

 

Some alarm flashed in John's eyes as he studied Bobby's face, obviously looking for any sign that this was a trick. Bobby's throat tightened in response; he wondered how many people had hurt John in the past for him to be this wary of kindness.

 

Finally John seemed to find what he was looking for, or not find what he was looking for in this case, and he dropped his head onto Bobby's shoulder with a hitched breath. Bobby gave an internal sigh of relief and wrapped his arms around John, who'd begun to shake slightly. There was a flash of movement in the corner of Bobby's eye and he looked up to see Logan hovering in the doorway with concern etched on his face. Logan obviously couldn't see Bobby but had to know someone was there from the way John was clearly being held by someone so he nodded in Bobby's general direction before he closed the door and left just as silently as he'd appeared.

 

Bobby could feel the rest of the cluster in the back of his mind, worried about the distress they were picking up from John, but keeping their distance until Bobby told them otherwise. Something Bobby was grateful about because John was skittish enough already. Bobby had the sudden urge to hunt down John's dad and punch him with Piotr's giant fist for messing up John enough that he panicked over being comforted when he needed it, just in case it created the perception that he might look weak.

 

John chuckled falteringly, his breath hot and wet through Bobby's t-shirt. He'd obviously picked up on the bloodthirsty turn of Bobby's thoughts.

 

"I sometimes think about finding him and kicking the shit out of him because I know that I could do that now," John murmured. "But mostly, I just hope that he's dead. That's pretty bad, right?"

 

"I think that it's understandable, actually," Bobby told him, thinking about what he'd just witnessed the man do to a child, and he knew that John could feel the truth of his words because he relaxed against Bobby a bit more.

 

They sat like that for a while, long past the point where John's shaking had subsided and his breathing had returned to normal. Bobby got the impression that John was soaking up Bobby's closeness like a man stockpiling wood for winter, as if he expected not to feel it again for a long time. Bobby was determined that wouldn't happen and he was certain that the cluster wouldn't let it happen either, that they'd give John affection in the same easy way that they gave Rogue human contact while she was stuck inside or cheered Bobby up when he'd felt down.

 

When John eventually pulled back, his face was dry and his eyes clear.

 

"Thank you," he said.

 

“Anytime,” Bobby replied. “I mean it.”

 

John nodded even though Bobby knew that he still didn’t quite believe it. He would though, Bobby would make sure of that.

 

Now that he could actually see John’s face properly, Bobby noticed the new bruise darkening John’s jaw; presumably from the training session with Logan. Before he really thought about it, Bobby’s fingers reached out and gently traced the edges of the bruise. John sucked in a sharp breath and Bobby immediately drew back, worried that he’d hurt him, but instead John’s eyes had darkened as he stared at Bobby. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and Bobby couldn’t look away.

 

He wasn’t sure who moved first but suddenly they were kissing, almost desperately, and it was just as good as it had been the first time. Bobby took a moment to wonder if it still felt as good to the rest of the cluster but then John nipped his bottom lip and all thoughts of anyone else flew out of Bobby’s head. John soothed the bite with his tongue and Bobby grinned before he tangled his hand in John’s hair and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.

 

John groaned, his hands fluttering over Bobby’s torso as if he couldn’t decide where to touch first, finally he grabbed the hem of Bobby’s t-shirt and dragged it up. They had to break the kiss so that Bobby could actually pull the shirt over his head and John unerringly latched onto that sensitive spot below Bobby’s ear as if he’d already known it was there. Bobby’s head fell back with a moan and he momentarily forgot everything, including the fact that he needed to finish pulling the t-shirt off his arms.

 

John chuckled lowly, the sound reverberating deliciously along Bobby’s skin which jolted Bobby back into action because he really needed to feel John’s bare skin against his. Even so it still took a while before they were both down to their boxers because John kept dragging Bobby into more of those mind melting kisses that made them both forget what they were doing for a few minutes.

 

Finally, Bobby triumphantly threw John’s pyjama pants across room which made John break into breathless laughter before he pushed Bobby to lie back against the pillows and then straddled his lap. Both of them shuddered as they slid together with only thin cotton separating them.

 

“God, Bobby,” John groaned. “You feel so fucking good.”

 

Bobby could only nod in agreement and rock up against him again.

 

John cursed and fell forward until his forehead rested against Bobby’s. He gazed into Bobby’s eyes and Bobby couldn’t help but gasp at the depth of the hunger he saw there, although he was pretty sure that his own eyes reflected John’s. Delicious shivers ran up and down Bobby's body as he felt the echo of John's pleasure as well as his own. This was possibly the most passionate moment he'd ever had in his life and Bobby wasn't sure that he ever wanted it to stop but at the same time he _needed_ to keep moving and touching and kissing and whatever else he could get from John.

 

John obviously felt the same thing because he finally broke eye contact and began to trail kisses down Bobby's neck and down over his chest. Bobby squirmed when John swiped his tongue over Bobby's nipples then they both moaned loudly as the squirming caused them to rock together again. John surged up Bobby's body to drag him into another frantic kiss while Bobby grabbed hold of John's amazing ass to keep them moving against each other.

 

Without breaking the kiss, John reached down and pushed Bobby's shorts down out of the way and licked his hand before taking Bobby in a firm grip. Bobby totally got on board with that idea and repeated the action on John only for John to bat Bobby's hand out of the way so that he could take hold of the both of them together. Bobby tore his mouth away from John's, arching his spine as pleasure shot through him at the feeling of them both pressed together like that.

 

"Oh fuck! John..." he cried and John chuckled, low and sinful against his throat.

 

"Maybe next time."

 

John started to work his hand over them and Bobby's toes curled against the sheets beneath him. He was practically vibrating with the need to do something, to touch John, so he covered John's hand with his own and together they set up a rhythm that worked for them both.

 

"Christ, Bobby...so fucking gorgeous...feel amazing, sweetheart..." John was babbling above him.

 

Bobby's chest heaved, as if he couldn't get enough air, and liquid pleasure pooled at the base of his spine when their hands sped up, each chasing that climax. John stiffened a split second before a wave of pleasure crashed over Bobby causing him to shout John's name and leaving him boneless, exhausted and ridiculously content.

 

John immediately collapsed on top of him, pressing a messy kiss to Bobby's shoulder. "That...was...fucking incredible."

 

"Better than...incredible!" Bobby panted, one arm slipping around John's waist and holding him close.

 

They stayed tangled up in each other as their heartbeats and breathing slowly returned to normal. Already comfortable with each other in a way that they probably wouldn't be without the bond.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	10. And so I Wake in the Morning and I Step Outside

**_ John _ **

 

"Do you know what sucks?" Bobby asked and then blushed as he clearly realised what he'd said and the very naked situation they were in.

 

John manfully resisted the urge to make the obvious joke and instead continued drawing idly on Bobby's stomach with his finger as he waited for Bobby to continue.

 

"I finally meet someone that I really like and he lives on the other side of the world," Bobby said.

 

John smiled wickedly. "Yeah, because if it's this good in our heads then can you imagine what it would be like in reality?"

 

Bobby's eyes glazed over for a second before he smacked John with a pillow.

 

"That's not what I meant. Well, it's not all that I meant," he amended with a smile of his own.

 

"I know," John said. "But unless you've planted a money tree outside your dorm, I don't think our geographical issues are going to change any time soon."

 

"We could ask Warren to fly us to see the other," Bobby suggested and John snorted in amusement.

 

"I know that he says that he's a qualified pilot but I get the feeling that he just flies those little two-seater things that rich boys have; not a plane capable of making it from the States to Australia," John pointed out.

 

Bobby poked him in the side. "Who says that it will be me flying out to you? Maybe it'll be you flying over here."

 

John squirmed and let out a small giggle before he could stop himself and Bobby's eyes began to gleam.

 

"You're ticklish?"

 

Holding out a hand in front of him, John warned. "Don't even think about it, Drake."

 

Bobby paid no heed to the warning and dived at John who rolled them both over and gave as good as he got as their laughter filled the room.

 

John wasn't sure when he'd eventually fallen asleep but he knew that he'd been sprawled all over Bobby. Bobby was gone when John woke up and although he did feel a tang of disappointment at that, the general afterglow was far too good for him to dwell on it. He was sure that Bobby had just slipped back into his own mind when he'd fallen asleep too.

 

It was late morning, according to his bedside clock, and John had a fight planned for early evening, one of Teagan's events, so he decided that he should probably head out for a run while it was still early enough for him to recover. When he went out to the kitchen, Logan was reading the newspaper with an open can of beer next to him. Logan could drink beer at any time of the day, something which had initially worried John when Logan moved in because there was no way he wanted to live with another alcoholic, but he'd quickly realised that Logan actually drank the non alcoholic stuff; he apparently just really liked the taste of beer.

 

"Going for a run?" Logan eyed John's sweats and old ratty t-shirt.

 

“No, I thought I’d go clubbing,” John snarked. “I can’t fail to get a hook up in this outfit.”

 

Logan rolled his eyes. “I thought you did enough hooking up last night. Certainly sounded like it. You do realise that you’re ultimately fucking yourself when you have sex within a cluster, right?”

 

John smirked at that. He was still feeling very smug about the mind blowing sex and not even grouchy Logan could bring him down.

 

"When you start paying rent then you can complain about how much noise I'm making. Until then you don't get to comment on my sex life," he shot over his shoulder as he left the apartment.

 

"You should probably pay me," Logan shouted after him. "Admit it, you like me living with you."

 

He didn't. He really didn't. Logan was grumpy, rude and he snored loud enough to make the walls shake. He was always chomping at those stupid cigars and when he actually smoked them, he never opened the window so the apartment smelled of them and John was probably never getting his deposit back. It was sort of nice to share the basic grocery shopping (neither one of them cooked so they just needed the staples and the cheap pizzeria down the street), and, if really pushed, John might admit that Logan was quite good company to have in the apartment. But he didn’t actually _like_ Logan being there.

 

Really.

 

When Piotr fell into step beside him, John raised an eyebrow in surprise. Piotr didn't seem like the running type; he clearly got his Greek god-like physique from all the heavy lifting at his family farm not a daily jog.

 

"I am taking a break," Piotr informed him, nodding his head behind him where John could see a newly ploughed field.

 

"You do exercise on your breaks? Shouldn't you be relaxing instead?" John asked.

 

Piotr nodded. "Normally I would be but I wished to speak with you, my friend."

 

"Ah. Is this about what happened with me and Bobby last night?" John asked and was relieved when Piotr shook his head.

 

“If any of us did not expect you and Bobby to have sex soon then we have clearly not been paying attention,” he said. “No, I wish to talk with you about the fighting. It is not healthy and we worry.”

 

John raised an eyebrow at him. “ _We?_ ”

 

“Yes, we.” Piotr nodded. “These fights, they are very dangerous.”

 

“Of course they are,” John agreed. “That’s why they pay so well.”

 

“No money is worth your life,” Piotr told him.

 

John was, strangely, equally annoyed and touched by the conversation. He’d never had anyone care about him getting hurt before, not even his mom; she’d just been relieved that she wasn’t the punching bag of the day. But he was a big boy who could take care of himself, who _had_ been taking care of himself for the past four years.

 

“It’s not like this is a life plan,” John eventually replied. “I’m not going to do it forever; I just need enough that I can go to college. Just enough that I don’t become one of those guys who has to drop out because their part-time job has to become full-time just to cover rent and groceries.”

 

Piotr frowned at him. “That is what this is about? You wish to go to college?”

 

The surprise in Piotr’s voice immediately got John’s heckles up in the way they always did when someone was shocked that he wanted to learn.

 

“You think that I’m not good enough for college?” John glared at him. “That my shitty upbringing means I’m not smart enough?”

 

“I just did not know that is what you wished to do, my friend,” Piotr assured him. “It is a worthy goal but perhaps there is a better way of reaching that goal.”

 

John kept taking searching glances at Piotr to see if he was messing with him but came to the conclusion that Piotr meant what he said so he just shrugged.

 

“Not if I want to go before I’m in my forties,” he explained. “This shit’s expensive. I’ve already got to apply for every piece of financial aid available but that doesn’t cover books or course material or just general living costs.”

 

Piotr frowned again and opened his mouth but John cut him off before he could say any more.

 

“Look, fighting I know. I’ve spent my life fighting and I’m good at it,” John told him. “Even when I’m getting my ass kicked, I’m good at it because I know how to take a punch. You don’t need to worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

 

Piotr was silent for long enough that John began to think that the conversation was over and they were just running together companionably. He should’ve known better.

 

“What happens if you cannot avoid a nasty hit?” Piotr asked quietly. “What happens if you are hurt enough to need hospital? You are courting trouble, John, and you are not only placing yourself in danger, you are doing it to the rest of us too.”

 

John slowed to a stop as that sank in and then stared at Piotr who gave him an apologetic look before he disappeared.

 

“Well, fuck!” John muttered to himself.

 

Just like John wasn’t used to people looking out for him, he wasn’t used to looking out for others. It hadn’t really occurred to him that he was risking the rest of his cluster and he was kicking himself for it because it was so obvious. If he got knocked out, an ambulance would be called, the hospital would give him a brain scan and then Stryker would find him.

 

He immediately turned around and ran back to the apartment. He marched into the kitchen and pointed a finger at Logan, who hadn’t moved in the time he’d been gone.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me that I’m putting the cluster in danger with the fights?” John demanded to know.

 

Logan glanced up from the paper. “I was waiting for you to figure it out for yourself, kid.”

 

“Seriously?” John gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve been training me, man! And I have a fight tonight; were you going to stop me or keep waiting for me to ‘figure it out’?”

 

“Actually, _I_ have a fight tonight,” Logan told him. “You’re injured and will be acting as my second.”

 

“What?” John blinked at him. “Did you call Teagan?”

 

“She called here, looking for you a couple of days ago,” Logan replied. “I explained that your ribs are still causing you pain and offered to fight in your place.”

 

John pulled out a chair and dropped into it, unable to stop staring at Logan the entire time. “I don’t even...You just...How did you get her to agree to that?”

 

Teagan never hired people that she didn’t know. She said that it was her reputation on the line and she needed to vouch for all her fighters.

 

“It took some persuading,” Logan admitted. “But when I mentioned my undefeated stint in Alberta, she finally agreed.”

 

John wasn’t sure where to start processing any of this so, of course, his mind latched onto the most insignificant part. “Alberta, Canada? Isn’t that where the Wolverine fought?”

 

Logan smirked at him around the ever present and currently unlit cigar and John's eyes widened as realisation of just why Teagan had agreed to let Logan fight dawned.

 

"Fuck off!" He exclaimed. "Are you saying that _you're_ the Wolverine? He was 54 and 0 in fights!"

 

"54 and 1," Logan corrected with a sigh and a rueful shake of his head. "I've always wished that I made it to 55 and 0, it just fucking sounds better.”

 

Logan studied John and apparently decided that John either needed a coffee or needed time to think because he got up and boiled some water. When the steaming mug of coffee landed in front of John and Logan had sat back down, John did have his thoughts in more order; which was kind of annoying because he didn’t want Logan to be able to read him that well.

 

He took a sip of the coffee, manfully resisting a wince when it burned the roof of his mouth. “You shouldn’t fight either. Stryker can use you to find me if you get caught.”

 

“He could,” Logan agreed. “But there are a few differences, the main one being that there’s nothing Stryker can do to me to make me give you up. I’ve already lost everything and, believe me, there is no pain worse than being the last of your cluster or having to let the woman you love die. Stryker can try to torture me for information but it won’t work, I promise you that.”

 

John swallowed hard and Logan sent him a glare that just dared John to pity him. It was an expression that John had worn more than a few times himself so he didn’t say anything, just drank some more coffee.

 

“Besides, in the unlikely event that I get knocked out,” Logan continued. “You’ll be there to stop them calling the paramedics.”

 

“True,” John agreed. He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “What the fuck do I do now?”

 

John was talking to himself but Logan answered anyway.

 

“You could move into managing fighters,” he suggested. “I could be persuaded to come out of retirement fully. God knows I’ve missed the feeling of bones crunching beneath my fists.”

 

“A nice and extremely creepy offer but you don’t need to do that for me. Besides, managing doesn’t make anywhere near enough,” John told him.

 

“What do you want to study?” Warren asked as he appeared in the seat next to Logan. He shrugged at John’s raised eyebrow and explained, “Piotr told me.”

 

“Creative writing,” John told him. “That’s what I was going to study. I...I’ve always wanted to be a novelist. Ridiculous, I know.”

 

“Who’s here?” Logan asked, unphased.

 

“Warren,” John told him and didn’t bother hiding his grin at Warren making the kind of faces at Logan that would definitely get him punched if Logan could see him.

 

“S’not ridiculous,” Warren said as he poked a finger into Logan’s ear. “You any good at it?”

 

John shrugged. “My teachers in school seemed to think my writing was pretty good, before my dad dragged me out of there to work with him instead. One of them actually helped me get my SATs behind my dad’s back and tried to get me a scholarship to college but I’m not from the US so I wasn’t eligible.”

 

“That’s why you moved back to Australia.” Logan nodded, thankfully able to keep up with the conversation because John wasn’t in the mood to repeat everything Warren said.

 

“It wasn’t for the weather,” John told him with a smirk. “Give me good old New York weather any day of the week. At least there _is_ weather there and not just sun, sun and, oh look, more fucking sun.”

 

Logan snorted and looked as though he totally agreed with John while Warren stopped acting like a teenage boy acting up in front of a camera and instead looked at John thoughtfully.

 

“I could pay for you to go to college,” he said. “And in the States, if that’s what you want.”

 

John scowled at him. “I don’t need your charity, Richie Rich.”

 

“It’s not charity,” Warren said and when John started to protest, he talked over him. “Look, I’m graduating in a couple of months and then I have to go and work for my father’s company. The plan is that I go in as some senior executive at one of the smaller companies to learn the trade before joining him on the main board. Unsurprisingly, Father Dearest doesn’t really care which of the smaller companies I go to so I get to pick for myself. The expectation is for me to go to one of the tech companies or something else that’s boring as hell. But what if I pick the publishing company?”

 

“How many companies does your dad actually own?” John asked.

 

“It’s one big umbrella company covering lots of smaller companies. It’s a whole thing,” Warren said, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m supposed to make my mark and prove that I’m worthy of my eventual ascension to the Worthington throne and how better to do that than by setting up a young writer’s programme? We find some promising writers and sponsor them through college and in return we’ll be their exclusive publisher. Oh my god, the proposal practically writes itself. I mean, sure, we’ll end up with some dud books or people who just can’t get anything written down but all we need is one JK Rowling or Stephen King and the whole thing becomes profitable!”

 

John snorted in the face of Warren's growing excitement. “You can’t start up a whole scholarship scheme in your dad’s company just so that I get to go to college.”

 

“Is that what he’s come up with?” Logan asked. “Impressive.”

 

“It’s not just for you to go to college,” Warren said. “I mean, it obviously started that way and _you will_ be the first recipient but it’s a genuinely good idea. You have no idea how horrifying the prospect of a lifetime in a job you hate really is but this is something I could really get passionate about.”

 

John studied Warren for a long moment. “Okay, say that I agree to go along with this; _hypothetically_. Can you even get it all set up in time? You have to graduate and settle into the job before creating something like this, surely. And you’ve got, what? Five months before the new school year starts.”

 

“Whoa, hold up a second,” Logan interrupted. “Did you just say that he’s graduating soon? I thought that the Boston kid was still in his first year of college. How is Warren graduating when they’re the same age?”

 

“Because Warren’s some kind of child prodigy who finished high school early and then whizzed his way through college too,” John explained while Warren gave him a small but genuine smile; for someone with such a brash personality normally, Warren was surprisingly modest about his academic achievements. “We’re all the same age? Actually all born in the same year?”

 

It wasn’t exactly a revelation, the entire cluster were obviously fairly close in age, it just hadn't occurred to John before now.

 

Logan looked surprised that John didn’t already know. “Closer than that. You were all born at exactly the same time. Didn't Scott cover this?”

 

“What?!” John and Warren exclaimed simultaneously.

 

“That’s the whole basis of a cluster, eight people with a head full of psycellium, all born at the same moment,” Logan told them; well, told John because he couldn’t see Warren.

 

John and Warren looked at each other.

 

“You know what this means, right?” Warren asked and when John shook his head, Warren grinned. “We’ve all got the same birthday. Epic Telepathic Birthday Party of Awesomeness, dude!!!”

 

“Don’t call me ‘dude’,” John told him but couldn’t help smiling at Warren’s enthusiasm.

 

Warren left soon after that to apparently look into his father’s publishing company and write up an actual proposal for his college idea. But John tried to put it out of his mind. He wasn’t sure if it was because his pride was still agitated at the idea that Warren might be pitying him or if it was because he didn’t want to get his hopes up that Warren might actually pull it off. He didn’t really think about it again until after the fight was over and he was back at home.

 

The crowd at the warehouse had been double the usual size because word had got around that the Wolverine was fighting and Logan didn’t disappoint them. John had been a little surprised at how much of a showman Logan had turned out to be; he didn’t just growl at his opponent and then knock them out at the first chance he got, instead he played with the crowd and gave them their money’s worth, even letting the other guy get a few good hits in before Logan eventually finished him off to huge applause. Unsurprisingly, Teagan had been over the moon and ended up giving Logan a bonus before trying her hardest to get him to take more fights from her. Maybe Logan had been onto something when he suggested John become his manager for a while; it wouldn’t be as much money as he’d make fighting but it was more than he’d expected. If he got a job as a shop clerk or something similar and used his cut from Logan’s fights to supplement it, it might still be possible.

 

He grabbed Logan's morning paper out of the trash and ignored Logan's curious look as he took it to his room. There was no better time to start than the present.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	11. And I Take a Deep Breath

**_ Bobby _ **

 

News of Warren's idea had filtered through the cluster to Bobby, who could barely contain his excitement at the thought of John being in the same country as him; possibly even closer than that. However, he was more than a little disappointed to find John pouring over the employment section of his local paper.

 

“I kind of expected you to be looking into US colleges after what Warren came up with, not part time jobs in Australia,” Bobby commented, trying to keep the bitter tone out of his voice.

 

“I’m not putting all of my eggs in Warren’s basket. There are hundreds of things that could go wrong with Warren’s plan, not least of which is his asshole father,” John replied as he circled a position. “Hey, if I borrow a scarf, I'd look hipster enough to take a job as a barista, right?"

 

“But what if it all goes alright?” Bobby questioned, ignoring the ridiculous hipster comment. “Don’t you think that you should at least have an idea of where you’d want to go?”

 

John glanced up from the paper. “I already know. I want to go to UCLA.”

 

Bobby’s stomach sunk; of course it would be a college on the other side of the country from Bobby. He tried to ignore that and remain upbeat because California was still a lot closer than Australia, but he apparently didn't do a very good job because John started to laugh at him.

 

“Bobby...” John held up a hand to stop the babbling nonsense that Bobby was currently spouting about UCLA’s apparent academic record. “I was just kidding. I think we’ve established that I don’t like too much sunshine. Why would I go to UCLA, you dork?”

 

“Oh!” Bobby blinked at him before starting to smile. “You know, Boston gets pretty cold. We even have snow.”

 

John chuckled and winked at him. “So I’ve heard; I’ll have to bear that in mind.”

 

“Anyway...hi,” Bobby said before leaning down to kiss John.

 

Bobby had just meant it as a chaste ‘hello’ kiss but John tangled his fingers into Bobby’s hair and immediately deepened the kiss, licking into Bobby’s mouth and exploring every bit thoroughly.

 

“Hi,” John repeated when they finally pulled apart.

 

John’s eyes had darkened and his lips had already begun to swell and Bobby wasn’t sure that he’d even get enough of seeing John looking debauched. Something about it hit every button that Bobby had.

 

John pushed his chair away from his desk and pulled Bobby down to straddle him. Bobby smirked and rocked their hips together hard enough to get a deep groan from John before leaning in to kiss him again.

 

The next few minutes were a blur of hot, passionate kisses and hands tangling together in a race to get each others clothes removed before stumbling their way across John’s room because they couldn’t stop touching each other. Bobby fell back onto the bed and pulled John down on top of him.

 

“God, John. I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Bobby sighed into John’s ear, nipping at the lobe lightly. “I think that I used up all the hot water in the dorms when I took a shower, just thinking about last night.”

 

"So hot, sweetheart." John groaned. "It's so hot when you say shit like that; you've no idea what it makes me want to do to you."

 

Bobby grinned up at him, unrepentantly. “What do you want to do?”

 

“ _Everything_ ,” John breathed. “I want to lick every part of you. I want to know what you taste like. I want to find every part that makes you shake and fall apart under me...”

 

If Bobby had thought that John looking flushed and dishevelled was sexy, then listening to John talk like that in a voice that was low and rough sounding, just took it up another level.

 

“...but the thing that I want the most,” John whispered into his ear. “Is for you to fuck me!”

 

At hearing those words, Bobby gave a loud moan and surged up to kiss him. He grabbed John’s head between his hands to hold him still as he kissed him as deeply and passionately as he knew how.

 

“Christ, John,” he whispered when he finally pulled back to begin nuzzling John’s neck.

 

John chuckled lowly. “I’ll take that as a yes to that plan?”

 

As if there would be any doubt. The thing was, John was still a little too coherent for Bobby’s liking so he set about remedying that. He grabbed John’s waist and quickly spun them so that John landed on his back beneath Bobby.

 

John’s eyes widened in surprise, it looked like he didn't expect Bobby to be able to manhandle him like that and Bobby was a little surprised himself that he'd managed it. But he didn't admit to that, instead he smirked and then leaned down to lick his way down John’s abs. When he nipped lightly at the juncture of John’s stomach and thigh, John arched up with a strangled noise. Bobby rewarded him by staying in that same spot for a few moments.

 

The noise that John made when Bobby then licked up the underside of his cock was one that Bobby made sure to commit to memory because he knew that it would sustain him through any lonely nights in the future. John tried to buck upwards but Bobby had him held down with an arm across his hips and when Bobby glanced up at John, he had his head thrown back against the pillows and there was a red flush that rose from John’s chest, up his neck to his face.

 

“Beautiful,” Bobby muttered as he pulled off and then he leaned across John to the nightstand and pulled out the lube he’d correctly guessed was stashed there.

 

John made a sound of protest at the fact that Bobby was no longer touching him and Bobby briefly detoured to drop a quick kiss on John’s lips before returning to his previous position where he determinedly used his mouth and fingers to turn John into a shaking mess.

 

“Please, Bobby,” John begged. “I’m ready, sweetheart, just... **please**...”

 

Bobby hushed John and ran a soothing hand over his quivering stomach. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

 

There was no need to hunt for a condom; truth be told there was probably no need for Bobby to open John up so thoroughly but he didn’t want to risk hurting John even a little and it wasn’t as though it was a hardship to spend time getting the normally self-assured John so worked up that all he could do was beg. Bobby slid a pillow beneath John and manoeuvred him until his ankles were on Bobby’s shoulders before Bobby slowly entered him in one long, smooth movement.

 

“Fuck!” Bobby cursed and dropped his head to his chest. “John, you feel so good...”

 

John just groaned in agreement, his eyes screwed tightly shut with faint frown lines marring his forehead as he adjusted to the feeling of Bobby inside him. Bobby waited until those frown lines melted away and John began to impatiently squirm against him before pulling out and pushing back in at an angle he knew would send sparks flying throughout John’s body.

 

“Oh God, Bobby!” John cried, his eyes flying open in surprise and his fingers scrabbling at Bobby’s back.

 

Bobby had to lean down and kiss him again, then he set up a rhythm which pushed them both closer and closer to the edge and had John babbling about Bobby’s sex god-like status (at least, that’s what Bobby would later insist that John had been talking about). When Bobby could feel that liquid pleasure pooling at the base of his spine, he took hold of John and began to stroke him in time with his thrusts. It only took a few strokes before John was calling out Bobby’s name and constricting around him which, in turn, set white lights bursting behind Bobby’s eyelids as his own intense climax hit.

 

“Holy shit!” John panted after Bobby collapsed on top of him. “I think I’m broken. I think you broke me with sex!”

 

“ _I_ broke _you_?” Bobby asked, incredulously. “I don’t think that I’ll be able to move for the rest of the day.”

 

John, thankfully, didn't point out that Bobby wasn’t actually there and so definitely would be able to move when he got back to his body. Instead he nuzzled against Bobby’s neck as Bobby felt himself beginning to drift away and his comment followed Bobby into sleep;

 

“So you're stuck here for the rest of the day, huh? That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

 

When Bobby woke up, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was still in John’s bed. The last time he’d fallen asleep there, he’d woken up back in his own bed so this was probably another example of their control over their power getting stronger. John was still fast asleep and drooling on Bobby’s shoulder a little and it was testament to just how attracted to John Bobby actually was that he didn’t find that gross.

 

He tried to manoeuvre out from underneath John without waking him but apparently John was a light sleeper and he stirred at the first movement.

 

“Hey, you’re still here,” he said, his voice rough from sleep and the other activities they’d indulged in.

 

Bobby leaned in to kiss him, morning breath be damned.

 

"I was just about to go, actually," Bobby told him, regretfully.

 

John gave a sleepy frown. "What happened to being stuck here all day?"

 

"As much as I'd like to," Bobby told him. "And I'd _really, really_ like to. I've got to study. This whole cluster thing has sort of thrown my study schedule off track and I've got to catch up."

 

"Study schedule?" John chuckled. "Oh my god, m'sleeping with a nerd!"

 

Bobby rolled his eyes, more than used to people making fun of his study plans. "Says the guy with a framed 'Conan the Barbarian' poster on his wall."

 

"S'classic," John protested even as he struggled to stay awake.

 

Bobby stroked a hand down John's face. "Go back to sleep. I can make fun of your movie tastes later."

 

"K," John mumbled before doing just that.

 

Bobby grinned down at him and then, between one blink and the next, moved back to his dorm room. He winced and scratched at the dried mess on his stomach, resolving to take a shower before he did anything else. He only had one lecture on a Monday and that didn't start until three pm so he had plenty of time to get some studying done at the library. He had the brief thought that maybe he should visit with Scott and check that the other man was okay, but Scott had left Boston a few days earlier because he said that he needed to be alone for a while so Bobby decided to give him a little more time to grieve.

 

Freshly showered and with all his supplies packed into his bag, Bobby left the dorms and headed to campus. He was half way there when his cell started to ring. Pulling it out of his pocket, he frowned at the caller screen and debated with himself for a moment before answering.

 

"What do you want, Ronnie?"

 

There was a moment of silence, in which Bobby almost hung up, before his brother's voice came through the speaker.

 

"I...I was hoping we could talk," Ronnie said in a hesitant tone. "I think we need to sort a few things out."

 

Bobby sighed. "I've got a lot to do today, I haven't got time to come and listen to your homophobic rants."

 

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about, Bobby," Ronnie replied. "I know that I took things too far, I just got caught up in being the favourite son for once. Look, mom's really upset that you left like that and I think that it was a wake-up call to us all. We didn't think that you'd really leave..."

 

Bobby rolled his eyes because they clearly had thought that he'd just keep showing up to get insulted. But they _were_ his family and if Ronnie was serious about having a proper sit down to hash everything out then it was worth a try. Right?

 

"Where do you want to meet?" he asked with a sigh.

 

"Really? Brilliant!" Ronnie said. "How about that place in the park? The one you showed me that time?"

 

It was the same place as Bobby had taken Scott and it wasn't too far away so Bobby agreed to meet him there in an hour. So much for a day of studying; he'd have to use that evening instead but it would be worth it if he could fix things with his family and that apparently started with mending his relationship with his younger brother.

 

As he had a little bit of time to kill, he went to a nearby coffee shop to at least read over some material for that afternoon's lecture before he strolled to the park.

 

Ronnie was already waiting for him under the canopy of trees and gave Bobby a big smile. "I wasn't sure if you'd actually show up."

 

"Yeah, well..." Bobby shrugged.

 

They both stood in awkward silence before Bobby finally asked, "Anyway, I'm here. What did you want to say?"

 

"That I'm sorry, I guess," Ronnie told him. "You have to realise that it was a shock to find you like that...with _him_. I kind of freaked out a little."

 

"A little?" Bobby shook his head. "You turned into a fucking jerk, Ronnie. If it had been anyone but you saying that shit to me, I'd have punched them in the face months ago."

 

"Oh, I'm sorry, princess. Did it hurt your delicate faggy feelings?" Ronnie sneered at him and Bobby stepped back with a frown, confused by the sudden change in attitude.

 

"What?"

 

"You heard me, cocksucker," Ronnie said and looked over Bobby's shoulder with a grin.

 

The hairs rose on the back of Bobby's neck and he knew what he'd see before he even turned but he hoped that he was wrong. Sure enough, there were six guys suddenly standing behind him, their faces contorted with righteous anger.

 

"Ronnie, what the fuck have you done?" Bobby whispered but Ronnie heard him and answered.

 

"I just found a new group of friends, ones that hate what you've become just as much as I do," Ronnie told him. "We're going to teach you a lesson, Bobby. We're going to teach you what a sick fucking pervert you are. "

 

Bobby dragged his eyes away from the newcomers to stare at Ronnie incredulously. "I'm your brother!"

 

"And you probably have the hots for him, perv!" one of the guys said.

 

Another one spat at Bobby's feet. "You like little boys too, faggot?"

 

"What the fuck?" Jubilee appeared and quickly took stock of the situation. "You need to get out of here, Bobby."

 

The men were blocking the path that led back to the main part of the park and the lake was behind him so he couldn't go that way. He was trapped. Ronnie, his own brother, had led him right into a trap and Bobby would be lucky if he only got away with a beating.

 

"Fuck it!" Bobby muttered and spun on his heel.

 

If he was going down, then he was going down fighting, he decided as his fist landed square in the middle of Ronnie's face. Bobby felt Ronnie's nose give way beneath his knuckles and blood spurted all over his brother's face as he screamed loudly. Bobby wasn't particularly surprised when the other guys rushed him, pulling him away from Ronnie and tripping him onto the floor.

 

"You motherfucker!" One of them yelled, raining punches down on Bobby's head while the others indiscriminately punched and kicked Bobby wherever they could reach.

 

Bobby pulled his arms up to protect his head when he felt someone take hold of his hand. He looked up to see Kitty standing above him, her eyes blazing with anger.

 

"Let me take over," she said and Bobby nodded.

 

He hadn't experienced one of the cluster taking control of his body before and it was a truly surreal experience to mentally step aside as Kitty took over control. It made his brain feel full to bursting to have two of them in there but the feeling passed quickly and he didn’t have much time to contemplate it. Especially when Kitty suddenly burst into action and made his body move in ways that Bobby didn't know it _could_ move.

 

She kicked out at the guys standing near Bobby's feet, catching each of them on the knee hard enough that they stumbled back and gave her room to do a crazy kick flip thing from her prone position right onto her feet. It obviously startled everyone and they just stared at Kitty!Bobby for a moment, long enough for her to take advantage and use her awesome ninja skills to send three of them crashing to the ground, clutching various body parts.

 

"Holy shit!" Bobby thought, "Remind me not to piss you off."

 

Kitty shot him a mental smirk before ducking a punch thrown by another one of the guys. This put the guy off balance and allowed Kitty to spin in place and give him a wicked looking punch to the kidney.

 

"You said that he couldn't fight!" One of the guys was yelling at Ronnie who had his hand over his nose, trying to stem the blood. "You told us it would be an easy beat down!"

 

"He couldn't fight for shit!" Ronnie shouted back. "He must've been training recently or something!"

 

"Or something," Kitty told him before she kicked him in the stomach.

 

Ronnie fell backwards and hit his head against the wooden bench with a nasty crack and panic shot through Bobby. He hated his brother and his narrow minded violence, and punching him had felt amazingly good, but he didn't want to seriously hurt him. Kitty felt Bobby's panic and immediately jumped back out of Bobby's body, allowing him to run to his brother.

 

"What the fuck is going on?" John asked as he appeared, along with Jubilee who had apparently gone to wake him up and bring him here.

 

"Bobby's fucktard brother and his friends tried to gay bash Bobby," Jubilee told him.

 

"Guys..." Kitty said in a warning voice and nodded towards Bobby and Ronnie.

 

Bobby saw all of this from the corner of his eye but Ronnie was his main focus. He was unconscious and Bobby frantically felt for a pulse, his shoulders slumping in relief as he found it beating slow and steady beneath his fingers. Even as he pulled his hand away, Ronnie was beginning to stir so he clearly wasn't hurt too badly. With a shake of his head, Bobby began to climb back to his feet. He heard Jubilee yell his name but before he could even turn his head to look at her, something hit him hard and everything went black.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	12. And I Get Real High

**_ John _ **

 

John's heart was in his mouth and he was half way across the clearing when he saw one of the homophobic assholes pick up a rock and crack it across the back of Bobby's skull. Jubilee yelled something and Kitty was cursing ineffectively at the guys but all John could see was Bobby crumpled form on the floor with blood oozing sluggishly from the wound, staining his hair.

 

"John....John!" Jubilee moved to block John's view of Bobby and get his attention on her instead. "We need to do something."

 

"What the fuck can we do?" John snapped. "We're just lucky that we haven't snapped back to our own bodies already. We're the dictionary definition of useless right now!"

 

"I don't know!" Jubilee shouted back at him. "Maybe one of us could go back to our body and call the cops; there has to be a general Boston number for them."

 

"If we call the cops, they'll call an ambulance for Bobby," Kitty said quietly. "Because he's been knocked out, the hospital will automatically have to give him a brain scan..."

 

"And then he's in deep shit." Jubilee finished, bitterly.

 

The rest of the group, apart from Ronnie, had roused enough to get back to their feet and were all standing around Bobby's unconscious form.

 

"Fucker!" One of them spat at him. "You broke my fucking tooth!"

 

"Your tooth?" Another one snarled. "He broke my wrist. Cocksucker!"

 

As he spoke, he kicked Bobby hard in the ribs. As if they'd been waiting for some sort of signal, once one of them had kicked Bobby, they all started to do it; obviously getting out their frustration at having their asses kicked by a gay guy. John immediately tried to jump Bobby's body but it didn't work, probably because Bobby was unconscious. So instead, he shouted, lashed out and kicked at the attackers but his foot just passed right through them as they all knew it would.

 

Surprisingly it was Ronnie who brought a halt to proceedings. He'd finally regained enough faculties to see what was going on and pulled the ringleader of the group away from where he'd been stomping on Bobby's stomach.

 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Ronnie demanded. "We're just supposed to rough him up a bit."

 

"That was the plan until he turned into a fucking ninja!" The guy answered hotly.

 

"Shit! Have you killed him?" Ronnie dropped down beside Bobby and for a moment John thought that he felt the same brotherly panic that Bobby had clearly felt when Ronnie got briefly knocked out but then Ronnie whined, "If he dies, we're going to be in so much fucking trouble!"

 

"What a fucktard!" Jubilee growled. "He's worried about getting in trouble? I swear, I'm going to catch a Greyhound to Boston just so that I can show him how much trouble he's really in."

 

"He's right, man," one of the gay bashers was saying to the ringleader. "We need to get out of here."

 

Another one shook his head. "If we just leave him here and he dies, we'll still get done for it."

 

"We call an ambulance," Ronnie said. "Leave an anonymous tip so that they can come and find him."

 

"Right...that's right," the ringleader replied. "And we go to the mall and make a scene. It'll give us an alibi."

 

With that decided, the group quickly left the small clearing, constantly looking around as if to make sure that no one was watching them.

 

John dropped to his knees besides Bobby. He could feel Bobby's pulse but it seemed a bit slow to him. He tried to roll Bobby over but it was the same as when he had tried to get into Bobby's body; it just didn't work if Bobby wasn't conscious. Instead, John placed his hand on top of Bobby's and tried to pour as much comfort through their connection as his could while the girls paced around them, desperately trying to come up with a way to get Bobby out of there before the ambulance arrived.

 

None of them managed to come up with anything in time, even when they were joined by Piotr and Doug, who had clearly felt their panicking through the sensate connection. John climbed into the back of the ambulance and put up with the weird feeling of people passing through him as they worked on Bobby in the cramped space. Doug and Kitty appeared at the hospital and stood silently beside John was they watched the doctor and nurses scan Bobby's brain for any indication of damage. It would just be a matter of time now until Stryker showed up and Bobby still hadn't regained consciousness.

 

By the time Warren joined them in their little vigil beside Bobby's hospital bed, John hadn't said a word since he'd snapped at Jubilee back at the clearing. Kitty and Doug had tried to talk to him but he barely heard them, he'd just kept staring at Bobby and willing him to wake up.

 

"...fuck sake, John!"

 

John blinked and looked up at Warren who was towering over him.

 

"Okay, I've finally got your attention. Good," Warren said. "We need to start planning and we need to do it now!"

 

"What?" John frowned.

 

He felt like his thoughts had turned sluggish and it was hard to concentrate on anything besides Bobby. Christ, he'd known that his attraction to Bobby was stronger than he normally felt but this had clearly gone beyond simple attraction; Bobby had become important to him even beyond the sensate thing. Just looking at Bobby's bruised, batter and still unconscious form gave John a tight ball of anxiety in the pit of his stomach and he felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

 

Warren started to speak again but was interrupted when Bobby's parents arrived along with a couple of cops. Bobby's parents looked as though they'd rather be anywhere else and John suspected that they only reason they'd shown up at all was to keep up appearances with the police.

 

"Oh, Bobby," Bobby's mother sighed as she looked at him.

 

Bobby's father barely afforded a glance in Bobby's direction; instead he talked to the cops.

 

"What happens now?" he asked.

 

The officer he'd spoken to, frowned a little and quickly glanced between Bobby and his father in surprise before replying. "We have evidence lifted from both your son and the area he was attacked. We will start processing that but, obviously, a statement from your son if and when he wakes up will be extremely helpful.”

 

That 'if' made John flinch and Warren put a comforting hand on John's shoulder, squeezing gently.

 

“Do you know of anyone who may want to hurt Robert?” The second officer asked. “Or any reason why he was attacked?”

 

“He probably got rolled by a john; isn’t that the phrase?” Bobby’s father muttered, ignoring the noise of protest from his wife.

 

The first officer’s frown got even deeper. “I’m sorry, sir; are you saying that your son is a prostitute?”

 

“Aren’t they all?” Bobby’s father asked with a sneer.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Warren muttered. “Just when you thought that they couldn’t get any worse.”

 

"Seriously." Kitty nodded. “How can someone like Bobby come from people like these?”

 

“What do you mean by ‘all’?” The second officer was asking.

 

Her expression was confused but realisation had apparently dawned for her partner as he studied the reactions of Bobby's parents.

 

“I believe he means gay people. Is that right, Mr Drake?” he asked. “Is that why Robert was attacked? Because he’s gay?”

 

Bobby’s mother jumped in before her husband could answer. “It’s just a phase. Young people get so confused these days; I blame the internet.”

 

The two cops exchanged a look that clearly stated what they thought about The Drakes.

 

“There have been several other attacks on gay people over the last six months,” the second officer told Bobby’s parents. “The department believe that one group is responsible. Although this attack is a lot more vicious than the others, it could be that Robert was attacked by the same people. I expect that the detectives investigating this particular group will want to interview you both later today.”

 

“Oh for crying out loud!” Bobby’s father exclaimed. “Haven’t we already told you enough? Haven’t we already humiliated ourselves by admitting...the _perversions_ of our son?”

 

The first officer narrowed his eyes. “The more information we can gather, the better able we will be to bring these people to justice. Don’t you want justice for your son?”

 

“What I want is my son back!” Bobby’s father said. “The way he was before all this. Before his mind was turned around by all the gays in the media. I want him to be normal again!”

 

John’s hands clenched into a fist, itching to plant itself in Bobby’s father’s face. How could people act this way in this day and age? He could feel the anger from other members of the cluster too. Warren still had his hand on John’s shoulder and John could feel the disdain for Bobby’s parents rolling off him in waves. Kitty was leant against the wall, glaring daggers at Bobby’s mother and Piotr was pacing in front of them, shaking his head as if in disbelief at what he was hearing.

 

A couple of doctors entered the room and asked the officers to leave so that they could talk to Bobby’s parents privately. John didn’t miss the look of relief the officers shared at not having to deal with the couple anymore.

 

“Robert has received several broken bones, deep bruising and a dislocated shoulder,” the male doctor began after the cops had left. “All of which will heal. Our main concern has always been for the head injury he received; that is why we gave him a scan...and I’m afraid that what we found is a matter for grave concern.”

 

“What did you find? Is he going to be alright?” Bobby’s mother asked.

 

“We don’t know,” the doctor admitted. “We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

 

Kitty groaned and banged her head against the wall behind her. “Here we go...”

 

“Robert’s brain is showing, not only some abnormal activity but also there is some growth,” the doctor said. “Or, more accurately, it appears that the two hemispheres of his brain are merging into each other.”

 

Bobby’s father frowned. “What on earth does that mean?”

 

The doctor shook his head. “We don’t know. As I said, we never seen it before. It’s possibly a tumour but it’s behaving in a very strange manner.”

 

“We have been in contact with other hospitals who deal with brain anomalies,” the female doctor took over, speaking for the first time. “And we have found a specialist who believes that he has seen something similar. He is on his way right now and should be here in the next few hours.”

 

“Stryker...” John whispered, gripping Bobby’s hand even tighter.

 

“Okay, it’s time to come up with that plan,” Warren said, his face grim. “We’re not letting Bobby fall into his hands like this.”

 

John nodded. “Anyone got any ideas?”

 

It turned out that they did or, at least, had started the ball rolling until they came up with something more concrete. Doug was already on a train from New York to Boston and was using his laptop and the train’s wifi to track any military type transport heading in the same direction that could be Stryker and his team.

 

“If he gets here before Stryker then we’ll just do the same thing that we did with Rogue,” Kitty said. “Pull the fire alarm and Doug can get Bobby the hell out of dodge during all the chaos. Provided that Bobby’s still unconscious that is; if he’s awake then we probably won’t need Doug to do anything at all.”

 

John looked down at Bobby. He’d wake up, he _had_ to wake up. The question was if it would be in time. “What if Stryker gets here first?”

 

Everyone was quiet for a long moment. In an ideal world, Doug wouldn’t be the choice to do anything dangerous or stealthy. It wasn’t an insult against Doug, it was just that they really needed him to be on his computer, tracking and hacking. Sending Doug out to get Bobby, not only put Doug in a completely alien situation where he may have to fight (which raised the odds of him making a mistake), but it left them blind from the technology standpoint.

 

"If Stryker gets here first then we'll guide Doug through what he needs to do," Warren said. "It would help if he had some kind of back-up. Do we know anyone in Boston that we can trust? Would Bobby's roommate help if we called him and told him Bobby was in trouble?"

 

Piotr frowned. "It is a shame that Bobby is the only one of us to make eye contact with Scott. It would be helpful to contact him right now."

 

"Scott! You're a genius!" John told Piotr. "You all keep close to Bobby. I'll be right back."

 

He blinked out of the hospital room and back into his own bedroom. John could hear movement in the living room and sprinted in that direction, skidding to a stop in front of Logan.

 

"Bobby's in trouble, you need to call Scott!" He demanded.

 

Logan didn't pause before getting to his feet. "Explain, kid."

 

John quickly outlined everything that had happened and Logan cursed before leaving the room. John went to follow but a look from Logan stopped him; Logan really hated to let anyone see him when his attention was elsewhere whilst 'visiting'. Instead John paced the room nervously as he waited.

 

After what felt like an hour but was really only a couple of minutes, Logan walked back into the room.

 

"Scott's on his way back to Boston. He's not too far away so he should be able to meet Doug off the train once he knows which one he's on," Logan told him.

 

John visited the hospital room again, straddling both the real and mental worlds in order to pass along Doug's train details for Logan to then pass along to Scott.

 

He then hesitated because the answer to his question wouldn't change the plan or the fact that they needed Scott to help get Bobby somewhere safe, but John had to know.

 

"You told me that if Stryker caught you, that I wouldn't be in danger." John levelled Logan with a look. "Is the same true for Scott?"

 

Logan nodded slowly. "Scott would never let any of Jean's kids get hurt. Certainly not because of him. Stryker won't get it out of him."

 

John believed Logan and let out a long breath. Scott wouldn't track Bobby or Doug for Stryker if he was caught. As callous as it seemed, they could now concentrate all their efforts on Bobby and Doug and trust that Scott could take care of himself.

 

They could plan all they wanted but, really, there was nothing that the rest of them could do until Doug and Scott reached Boston. What followed was a tension-filled wait where time seemed to crawl by. Doug had managed to find Stryker's convoy; his wi-fi signal was intermittent while on the move so he couldn't track them properly but it seemed that it would be a coin toss as to who arrived at the hospital first.

 

John didn't move from his place by Bobby's side. He kept hold of Bobby's hand as he whispered things to his unconscious lover; everything from pleas for Bobby to 'just wake up' to funny observations of the various nurses and doctors who wandered past the room. The other members of the cluster moved in and out of the room, swapping places with an insistent need to move and do something but ultimately being as trapped as Doug was on that train. Only Warren actually seemed to be doing anything; he kept disappearing to check on things and make sure that something or other was being done but he didn't disclose exactly what he was up to and John didn't ask. Instead he trusted Warren to step up and take over the role as leader of this crazy scheme of theirs because John was in no mental state to do it himself. And he supposed that's what the cluster was, when he boiled it down to basics, people that you trusted beyond a doubt to take care of you and reinforce you when you needed it because you'd do the same for them.

 

Not just a family...something more.

 

Hours later, John's heart sank when the door to the room opened and Stryker marched into the room accompanied by the female doctor that had spoken to Bobby's parents.

 

"He just beat us," Doug said, his face a picture of frustration as he appeared in the centre of the room. "We pulled into the car park and spotted him already walking into the building."

 

"Are you still in the car park now?" Warren asked and Doug nodded.

 

"We've pulled into a spot where we can keep an eye on the trucks," he said. "The soldiers are all having a smoke or stretching their legs so they obviously don't think they need to keep a low profile or anything. Though I guess it would be hard to keep a low profile when they travel in packs of black SUVs."

 

"How many soldiers are there?" Rogue asked from her perch on the window sill, she'd been there for the past hour. "Could Kitty take them down?"

 

Doug blinked and looked a little frightened by that prospect, seeing as it would be his body that Kitty would be wearing. "I'd say that there's about twelve of them. There are three trucks but the soldiers are only in two of them. Scott says that the third one is likely decked out inside like an ambulance. It makes it easier to transport people that are either unconscious or strapped down to a gurney."

 

Kitty tilted her head to one side as Doug spoke. “That counts a fight out. Sorry guys, I’m good but I'm not twelve on one good."

 

John watched as Stryker examined Bobby and the medical file that the doctor had handed him with barely concealed triumph when something suddenly occurred to him. "Doug, ask Scott if Stryker's sensate is out there with the soldiers."

 

Doug relayed John's question to the air next to him where Scott must have been before shaking his head. "No, no sign of her out here."

 

"What are you thinking?" Warren asked John.

 

"That surely, she should be here with Stryker," John said. "She needs direct eye contact so he'd want that to happen as soon as possible just in case Bobby managed to escape like Rogue did. I mean Bobby could wake up at any time, it's a hell of a gamble to keep her in Stryker's pocket until they're in the van or something."

 

"That means that she's not here," Kitty concluded with a small smile. "I mean, at all. She's not with Stryker."

 

"That buys us some time," Rogue agreed.

 

The second doctor entered the room, followed by Bobby's parents and Ronnie.

 

"Oh he's got some fucking nerve, showing up here," Rogue snarled.

 

Actually, Ronnie looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but there. His eyes kept darting about the room, nervously, as though he expected Bobby to suddenly throw back the covers and dramatically declare, _'It was you!_ '

 

Bobby's parents only looked marginally more happy to be back at the hospital. They had left as quickly as they could earlier in the day and were clearly only back because the doctors had summoned them to meet 'the specialist'.

 

The doctors introduced the Drakes to 'Dr Cooper' who then asked the doctors to leave him to talk to the Drakes alone. The doctors looked taken aback but Stryker merely stared at them until they did as he asked.

 

"I've reviewed both Robert's medical files and the police report of the incidence this morning," Stryker told Bobby's parents. "I understand that you believe this attack happened because of Robert's sexuality?"

 

Doug glared at Stryker. "He hacked the police database, he had to have."

 

Ronnie flinched when Stryker mentioned the attack, something that John was sure Stryker didn't miss. Nor the fact that Ronnie clearly had a very recently broken nose.

 

"I don't know what else it would be," Bobby's mother said. "He was such a sweet boy before all this. No one would've wanted to hurt him."

 

"I see." Stryker looked thoughtful. "So this was a recent change? Robert deciding that he was gay?"

 

Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Deciding?"

 

"Shit!" Warren swore. "The cops had to have made a note of the reactions of these idiots earlier. He's playing into their homophobia."

 

Bobby's mother was nodding. "It was over the summer."

 

"That makes sense," Stryker told her. "That would've been when the tumour first appeared, judging by how much it has spread."

 

Bobby's father frowned. "Are you saying that the tumour made Bobby gay? Is that even possible?"

 

"If you remove it will he go back to normal?" Bobby's mother asked.

 

Rogue closed her eyes with a sigh. "Fuck!"

 

"And that's called 'playing right into his hands'." John shook his head. "Clever bastard."

 

As John expected, Stryker assured the Drakes that, if the tumour could be removed successfully, then Bobby would revert back to his previous heterosexual ways. But that the operation was very risky and had to be done at a private facility he worked at. And, obviously, Bobby's parents readily agreed to the risky surgery without even questioning the fact that they weren't allowed to accompany Bobby to this mysterious facility or even be told where it was.

 

"All he'll have to do is tell them that Bobby didn't make it through the surgery and he can keep Bobby for as long as he likes," Kitty said.

 

"No doubt Ronnie will be happy at that," Rogue added. "He didn't look too pleased by the idea of Bobby being 'back to normal' because Bobby will be able to tell everyone just who instigated the attack."

 

Things moved along pretty quickly. Whatever fake credentials that Stryker had given to the hospital seemed to ensure that they all bowed to his every demand and Bobby was signed into his care and strapped onto a gurney before the hour was out. John obviously stuck by Bobby’s side as he was taken out of the hospital and loaded into the back of one of the SUVs. Scott was right, it was decked out like an ambulance and John wondered how many other sensates Stryker had captured in this very vehicle.

 

The cluster had had a brief discussion over whether to try and commandeer the ambulance!SUV by knocking out the drivers and taking their place but, unfortunately, it had been impossible to figure out which of the milling soldiers were the drivers. So now Bobby (and John) were in the back of the moving vehicle, headed to God only knew where, with their only hope of getting Bobby out of this predicament following behind in a piece of shit rental car.

 

Stryker had opted not to travel in the SUV with Bobby and instead left him in the care of one of the soldiers who had spent the entire trip so far reading from a folder and paying zero attention to Bobby. John was beginning to suspect that Stryker’s soldiers were actually guys who either couldn’t get into the actual military or who had washed out, because they didn’t seem too concerned about their job.

 

There was a faint groan and John’s attention shot from trying to decipher what was in the folder the soldier was reading – it definitely wasn’t in English – to Bobby who finally seemed to be stirring.

 

“Oh, thank god!” John muttered, relief crashing over him.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	13. And I Scream from the Top of My Lungs

**_ Bobby _ **

 

Bobby felt like he was swimming in molasses. Everything was dark and it was as though the very air around him was too thick; tangling around him and trying to pull him down. But there was a familiar voice urging him to keep fighting his way free.

 

“Bobby? Come on, sweetheart. You need to wake up.”

 

It took a supreme force of will but Bobby managed to open his eyes.

 

“John?”

 

It was barely a whisper because Bobby’s throat felt scratchy and dry but John heard it and grinned down at him. The smile was slightly off though, it seemed tinged with relief and desperation and Bobby realised that everything suddenly felt wrong. His thoughts were sluggish and his body felt numb, or was it the fact that his head felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool that was making his body feel that way?

 

“What...?”

 

That was all Bobby managed to say before the scratchiness of his throat caused him to cough and Bobby was suddenly praying for his body to feel numb again because the world had exploded into bright, sharp pain.

 

“Shit!” John swore and Bobby felt his hands gently push Bobby back down onto the bed. “Stay still a moment. You’ve got a dislocated shoulder and a few broken ribs. I’m pretty sure there’s a concussion too.”

 

Bobby did as he was instructed and concentrated on being able to breathe shallowly enough to avoid the sharp stabs of pain he got when he tried to take a deeper breath. It was while he was doing that that he became aware of three more strange things. Firstly, that he couldn’t move his hands or feet because they were strapped down to the strange bed he was on, and secondly, that there was someone else there with him and John. Looking past John, Bobby could see the man who appeared to be dressed in some kind of body armour and was talking into a walkie talkie on his shoulder. Lastly, they were in the back of an ambulance but not any type of ambulance Bobby had seen before and the body armour guy certainly didn’t look like a paramedic.

 

Luckily, John seemed able to read his confusion and leaned closer to explain. “After the attack you were taken to hospital and have been out for most of the day.”

 

Attack? Bobby frowned for a moment and then it all came flooding back. Ronnie and his new ‘friends’ had jumped him in the park. Fuck!

 

John seemed to waver for a moment and then kept going. “The hospital ran scans on you, we had no way of stopping them. Stryker found you.”

 

Bobby gasped but John’s hand were stroking over him in a calming fashion before he could tense enough to make that pain flare up again.

 

“You’re going to be okay,” John insisted in a fierce voice. “Scott and Doug are actually here, _physically_ ; they’re right behind us, following the truck in their car. The rest of us are here too. We’re not going to let him hurt you, Bobby; we’re all going to help get you free...and that starts now. Jubes?”

 

Jubilee appeared next to John. She smoothed her hand over Bobby’s forehead in an affectionate gesture before turning her attention to John.

 

“Do your lock picking skills extend to cuffs?” John asked her.

 

She frowned for a moment before she followed John’s eyeline and then she smiled. “With a little bit of help they can,” she said. “Bobby, I need to bodynap you for a little while. I won’t hurt you, I swear.”

 

Bobby nodded and closed his eyes against the wave of nausea he felt when Jubilee took over control of his body, no doubt a side effect of the concussion. There was that sensation of his brain being too full and he tried to distract himself by mentally reciting pi but it didn't do much good because his brain was still a bit too sluggish to actually recall much of pi right then.

 

"John, keep talking to him. He's freaking out a little."

 

Bobby jumped at the sound of his own voice and realised that it was actually Jubilee speaking to John through him.

 

“You're alright,” John said, slipping his hand into Bobby’s and smiling down at him. “Kitty won't be very long, she just needs to perform her criminal activities and then she'll be out of you. Is it wrong that I find it quite hot that there are two of you in that gorgeous body?"

 

Bobby mentally snorted and thought, ' _so wrong, you kinky jerk._ '

 

John grinned at him and looked smug, he'd obviously felt Bobby's reaction and it had clearly been what he was looking for. Then he turned away slightly to watch the other man in the ambulance. Stryker’s man had his back to them and was still talking to someone on the walkie; Bobby picked up enough to know that he was informing the person on the other end that Bobby was awake and asking how to proceed. Bobby ignored the cold shiver that ran down his spine at the thought of all the ways the man could be instructed to hurt him while Bobby was strapped down. Speaking of which....Bobby turned his attention back to what Jubilee was doing with his body.

 

Now that he was paying proper attention, Bobby noticed that there was a folder on top of his lap with papers spilling out; obviously it belonged to the soldier guy and he’d discarded it there when he’d jumped up to radio whoever it was he was talking to. As Bobby watched, Jubilee stretched his fingers out enough to be able to pull a paperclip off some of the papers and he realised the plan here. Sure enough, she managed to open up the clip one handed and then, with a bit of effort she slid the thin metal into the keyhole on the cuffs.

 

' _There’s no way,_ ' Bobby thought. ' _That only works in the movies._ '

 

' _Oh ye of little faith,_ ' Jubilee thought back, and then gave a small noise of satisfaction when the cuff made a soft click.

 

Bobby blinked. ' _I can talk to you in here?_ '

 

He felt her frown for a moment before she replied. ' _Apparently. Hmm...interesting._ '

 

As this mental conversation was happening, Jubilee managed to pull Bobby's hand free from the cuff and then turned her attention to the cuff around his other wrist. Once it was also free, Jubilee jumped out of his body and, with the help of John, they got Bobby to carefully sit up. It was just in time as the soldier received his orders and signed off, turning back around to face Bobby. Before Bobby realised what was happening, John jumped into his body and punched the soldier as hard as he could, taking the soldier completely unawares and knocking him out cold.

 

Bobby stumbled forward a little, clutching at his ribs but the pain of moving so quickly was muted a lot by John having the majority control of his body. He knew that John was actually taking the brunt of it until it subsided.

 

“You didn’t need to do that,” Bobby told him when John was back out of his body.

 

John gave him a somewhat strained smile. “Believe me, that was nothing compared to having to watch what your brother and his friends did to you. I tried to take your place then too but it wouldn't work.”

 

The breath caught in Bobby’s throat when he could see the pure emotion shining in John's eyes.

 

“I want to kiss you now but it’ll hurt to drag you closer,” Bobby told him. “So you’ll have to come here by yourself.”

 

John barked a laugh. “I can do that.”

 

He stepped close to Bobby and leaned forward to brush a kiss against Bobby’s lips, ever mindful of hurting Bobby. Bobby wasn’t having any of that; with his good arm, he slid his hand behind John’s neck and held him in place while he deepened the kiss. Not much but enough that John would know that Bobby felt just as strongly for him.

 

“Okay, my hands are free so what now?” Bobby asked when he pulled back.

 

“Well, if you two are quite finished with the chick flick moment, I still have some work to do.”

 

Both guys jumped at Jubilee’s voice, Bobby had completely forgotten that she was there and judging by the look on John’s face, he had too. Jubilee gave them both an amused look before she took over Bobby’s body once more to pick the lock on the ankle cuffs then she gave them a saucy wink before she vanished again.

 

Bobby slowly manoeuvred himself so that he was sitting on the edge of the gurney while John looked out of the window of the rear doors.

 

“There’s an SUV directly behind us,” he told Bobby. “And I’m pretty sure that that whole jumping out of the back of a moving ambulance on a gurney thing doesn't work in real life. So we need a better plan than that.”

 

Carefully pushing himself to his feet with one arm wrapped around his ribs, Bobby shuffled across the small space to a cabinet with clear plastic drawers. As he suspected the drawers were filled with all sorts of drugs.

 

“Perhaps we can do something with these,” he said and John came over to join him.

 

“At the very least, we can use a sedative to keep Sleeping Beauty under for a while longer,” John agreed, nodding his head at the unconscious soldier.

 

Bobby hummed and kept staring at all the drugs; a horrible idea occurring to him.

 

He was trapped in the back of a makeshift ambulance, injured and vulnerable. God only knew where Stryker was taking him but they all knew what would happen when he got there. Stryker would use any means necessary to get Bobby to tell him where the rest of the cluster were; _where John was_. And, as much as Bobby would like to say that he’d never give Stryker what he wanted, they didn’t know what tactics Stryker would use. Maybe he’d even hypnotise Bobby so that Bobby would give the information up without realising it. He couldn’t let that happen. He briefly saw Jean in his mind’s eye; saw the peace that settled over her face just before she pulled that trigger, and began pulling random bottles from the trays.

 

When he found what he was looking for, a sedative strong enough to do the job, Bobby grabbed a syringe and filled it up with the sedative – way past the recommended dosage.

 

“That’s far too much,” John told him. “We only need a little bit to make sure he stays under a while longer.”

 

Bobby forced himself to look John in the eye. “It’s not for him.”

 

“Not for...” John frowned in confusion until Bobby slowly began to roll his sleeve up. “No! Don’t even think about it, Bobby!”

 

“It’s the only way, John,” Bobby told him. “I won’t put you, any of you, at risk. I’d rather die than be the reason you fell into Stryker’s hands.”

 

“You won’t be,” John replied. “We’re going to get you out of here. All of us.”

 

Bobby shook his head sadly. “How? The odds are very much stacked against us, John. This may be the only chance we have to stop him hunting the rest of you down. This may be my only chance to protect you.”

 

John stepped up to Bobby and cupped his face in his hands. “Killing yourself won’t protect us. It won’t protect _me_ , it’ll rip me apart the way Jean’s suicide has destroyed Scott. If the past twenty four hours has taught me anything, it’s that the idea of having this amazing gift without you to share it with is unbearable to me.”

 

Bobby’s breath hitched. “John...”

 

“No.” John cut him off with a desperate kiss that reopened the cut on Bobby’s bottom lip but Bobby didn’t care, just returned the kiss equally desperately.

 

“I won’t let you do it,” John whispered fiercely when they’d broken apart. “I won’t lose you. Not yet. Not to him.”

 

Bobby was suddenly bombarded with all the emotion John felt and he gave a broken sob, dropping the syringe to the floor and allowing John to pull him into his arms. Looking over John’s shoulder, Bobby could see the rest of the cluster watching him from their various locations, relief etched on their faces that John had talked Bobby around. Immediately, Bobby began to shake as not only the realisation of what he was about to do hit him fully but also everything else that had happened that day.

 

John muttered against Bobby’s hair as he held him close; things like, ‘I’ve got you’, ‘I won’t let him take you’ and Bobby’s personal favourite, ‘You’re mine, I'm not letting you go.’

 

Doug cleared his throat uncomfortably and Bobby and John turned to look at him without letting go of each other.

 

“I have a message from Scott,” Doug told them. “He says that Bobby should be sedated by the time we reach the facility. That way if the sensate is there, she won’t be able to make eye to eye contact with you.”

 

John flinched a little and Bobby stroked his back with his good hand.

 

“Why didn’t Scott just come and tell me that himself?” he asked Doug.

 

Doug rubbed the back of his neck. “He wasn’t sure that John would believe you about the sedating thing after what just happened. Sorry, I had to tell him why I was freaking out.”

 

Bobby nodded in understanding even as he gave Doug an apologetic look.

 

“He _is_ right,” he said to John who sighed.

 

“I know. But I’m going to administer the sedative, okay?”

 

“Alright,” Bobby agreed.

 

He closed his eyes again when John took over his body but the nausea wasn’t as bad this time and that odd full feeling in his head had lessened each time someone had been in there. He watched as John used his hand to grab a new syringe and double checked that he'd measured out the correct dose before shuffling back over to gurney and carefully laying down. With a little difficulty and hisses of pain, John managed to push the needle into the vein in Bobby’s forearm. John then swiftly left his body and leaned down to kiss Bobby before the sedative took hold.

 

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” John promised him and held Bobby’s hand as his eyes closed and the sleepiness pulled him under.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	14. What's Going On?

**_ John _ **

 

Only once Bobby’s breathing had evened out into sleep did John drop his head into his shaking hands. What the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck just happened? Bobby tried to kill himself and John...John had realised that he was actually head over heels in love with the guy. It was sort of a lot to process all at once.

 

“You okay?” Warren asked and John gave an unamused laugh.

 

_Of course_ it would be Warren checking up on him. Of all the cluster, it was Warren who had weirdly become John’s closest friend.

 

“Not really,” John admitted.

 

Warren nodded. “Think you can hold it together a little while longer?”

 

John raised his head to grumble at the other guy. “When did you stop being the billionaire playboy who only cares about when he’s getting laid next?”

 

Warren smirked. “Who says that I’ve stopped?”

 

“I don’t know, you’re acting awfully responsibly for a playboy,” John pointed out.

 

Warren shrugged. “Some things are more important than behaving irresponsibly.”

 

“Yeah,” John agreed and then sighed. “I can hold it together.”

 

“Good because we’re at the facility,” Warren told him and suddenly John realised that the truck was slowing down.

 

That ball of anxiety in John’s stomach grew three sizes and he swallowed hard. “Let the games begin.”

 

In any other circumstances, John would have laughed at the confusion of Stryker and his minions when they opened the rear doors of the ambulance. The soldier was out cold on the floor with a bruise darkening on his jaw. Bobby was unconscious on the gurney but he was no longer strapped down. Also, there were two syringes on the floor; one empty and one filled with a massive overdose of sedative. That soldier would have some answering to do when he woke up and the guy would actually have no idea what happened.

 

Stryker ordered that Bobby be taken to the lab and woken up by any means necessary and a couple of people in scrubs immediately jumped forward to follow instructions. As John followed behind Bobby’s gurney, he crossed his fingers and threw in a prayer for good luck. It was up to Doug and Scott now; with some help from the others, of course. John’s job was to stay with Bobby and keep an eye on what Stryker and his cronies were doing with him. Basically he had to let the cluster know if Doug needed to pick up speed because they were about to hurt Bobby.

 

For now, though, everything in the lab was on hold until Bobby woke up. Stryker had marched in, not long after they’d moved Bobby’s gurney into place and hooked him up to some machines, and demanded that the doctors, or scientists or whatever they were, wake Bobby up with drugs but they refused. They said that a combination of those drugs, the sedatives and the concussion apparently made it highly likely that Bobby would suffer some brain damage and possible severing of the sensate link. Stryker had thrown a bit of a tantrum but John was more interested in the woman who’d accompanied him. She was gorgeous in a sort of ice queen way but her eyes were dead; no emotion whatsoever, as if she were in a trance. John knew instinctively that this was the sensate who worked for Stryker. He also realised that Bobby had been right, Stryker was able to use some kind of brain washing or hypnosis because this woman’s lights were on but there was clearly nobody home.

 

John let the others know that they had until Bobby naturally woke up to get him and caught a glimpse of Doug hacking into the security system on his laptop, which was a little surprising. John obviously knew that Doug was a hacker but he didn’t realise he was that good at it; he’d assumed that a decent hacker would use his skills to get enough money to move out of his parents’ house. He also got a good look at Scott who looked terrible, even worse than that day he'd been teaching Bobby at the lake. The scruff on his jaw was edging its way to a full on beard and the bags under his eyes were probably big enough to now be called ‘luggage’. But there was a spark of something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, something hard and fierce.

 

“Holy shit, he’s going to try and take Stryker out, isn’t he?” John said before he could stop himself.

 

“Is that really a bad thing?” Rogue asked. “You saying that you wouldn’t do the same for Bobby if you were actually here?”

 

John didn’t need to answer that, it was perfectly obvious that he would. Instead he returned to watching over Bobby at the lab and tried not to crawl out of his skin at the amount of time this was taking.

 

By the time the door opened and Doug and Scott slipped inside, dressed like a pair of Stryker’s soldiers, John had taken to pacing the floor just to have something to do.

 

“Jesus Christ, you actually made it!” John exclaimed before he could stop himself.

 

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, John,” Doug shot back.

 

“That’s not...Doug, no...” John shook his head and tried to explain himself coherently. “It wasn’t meant against you. It’s just that everything was stacked against us...”

 

Doug nodded. “That’s alright, I get it.”

 

“Guys...” Scott said with a note of warning in his voice, even though he couldn’t see John.

 

“Right. No time for chit chat. We've got about fifteen minutes before the lab staff realise that the email they all received, calling them to a meeting with Stryker, wasn't actually sent from Stryker,” Doug agreed and hurried across the room to fiddle with the machines. As he worked, he explained to John what he was doing. “If we just remove the wires from Bobby, the machines will register it and an alarm will go off. I need to reprogram them so that they keep registering vitals even with nothing attached to them.”

 

While Doug got to work, Scott began to cover Bobby with blankets to hide his body and, when Doug gave him the nod, he carefully removed the various wires from Bobby then covered his face with a blanket too.

 

“You’re going to pretend that you’re getting rid of a dead body,” John said as he caught on. “That’s pretty genius.”

 

“Thanks, John-boy!” Rogue appeared next to him and the smile she gave him was a little brittle around the edges but at least she was trying to remain upbeat. “That idea was mine.”

 

He gave her a quick hug, trying to make both of them feel a little better. When he pulled back he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye; the door to the lab had whispered open and Stryker's sensate was sneaking into the room, almost silently.

 

"Shit!" Rogue breathed and Doug's head shot up to look at them.

 

"Doug, do not turn around," John told him in as soothing a voice as he could manage. "Keep your eyes on us and come over here as quickly as you can; the sensate just walked through the door."

 

Doug's eyes widened, then he burst into a sprint across the room.

 

"Scott, look out! Behind you!" he yelled as he ran to Rogue, who grabbed him into a hug and turned him so that there was absolutely no way he could accidentally make eye contact with the sensate.

 

Scott, on the other hand, spun in place as soon as he heard Doug's warning but the sensate was quicker and she kicked him in the stomach, causing him to double over in pain. The sensate grabbed Scott by the hair to make him face her but, apparently, Scott had exaggerated how hurt he'd been by the kick because he reared up and gave her a head butt that made John wince. The sensate staggered back, her hand pressed to her forehead, although that didn't stop the small trickle of blood dripping onto her cheek.

 

Taking advantage of the stunned reaction of the sensate, Scott threw himself forward and grabbed her, spinning her around so that her back was to his chest. He moved his free arm up, probably to try and choke her out, but the sensate recovered enough to grab Scott's arm with one hand and hold it away while simultaneously jamming the elbow of her other arm into Scott's side. The move caused Scott's grip on her to falter and, quick as a flash, she used both hands to twist Scott's arm, ducking beneath and turning with it, until she had Scott on his knees, bent forward with his arm in the air behind him.

 

"She's going to pull his shoulder out of the socket," John murmured even as Scott let out a small cry of pain.

 

"Stop her," Doug said and gave John a, only slightly hesitant, nod.

 

"This isn't a good idea," Rogue told them. "It'll only take one slip up for the sensate to make eye contact with Doug."

 

"If we don't do something now, it'll make it that much easier for her to do it when she's finished with Scott," John replied and then jumped into Doug's body.

 

There was the usual moment of disorientation that came from taking over someone but John shrugged that off and carefully snuck up behind the sensate; which was easier than he'd expected because all of her attention was on hurting Scott; she'd apparently dismissed Doug as the lesser threat.

 

She pushed Scott's arm up another inch, causing the man to give a second sharp cry, then John was close enough to grab a handful of her hair and pull her away from Scott. At the same time, John kicked the back of her knee so that she buckled to the ground. Using the momentum of her falling and the hair he still had in his grip, John pushed forward and down even further before she could recover and smacked her head hard against the floor. She gave a grunt of pain and shakily tried to push herself back up onto her knees. Impressed at her resilience, John moved forward again, intent on repeating the move but, before he could, Scott wrapped his forearm around her throat and pulled him against her. John was about to turn and avoid any accidental eye contact with the sensate before Scott could make her pass out, when he saw Scott adjust his grip so that he had hold of her chin while his other hand grabbed hold of the back of her head.

 

John's eyes widened. "Scott...what...?"

 

Before he had the chance to finish his question, Scott used his grip to twist the sensate's head sharply to one side and a loud crack filled the room.

 

Rogue gave an aborted scream from behind him but John couldn't take his eyes off Scott as he dropped the sensate's body to the floor and stood up.

 

"Doug?" he asked and John shook his head.

 

"I'm John."

 

Scott nodded. "You know that I had to do that, right? She would have just kept hunting us all for Stryker."

 

"She wasn't in control though," John told him. "I could see it in her eyes. She was in a trance or something."

 

A flash of guilt crossed Scott's face as he looked down at her. "It doesn't change things; if anything, it makes this a mercy. At least she's not being forced to hurt her own kind anymore."

 

"We can discuss the morals of this later," Doug interrupted as John left his body. "We need to go. Now!"

 

Forcing himself to turn away from Scott, John watched as Doug ran forward and released the brake on Bobby's gurney. Just as Rogue had guessed, the few soldiers they happened upon in the corridors merely gave the gurney a disquieted look as Doug and Scott rolled it past them. It didn't matter how tough you thought you were, being close to a dead body made most people very uncomfortable.

 

As they reached the exit to the facility and John finally allowed himself to think that they might be able to pull this off, Scott stopped.

 

"Go on, you can make it from here," he told Doug. "I've got some unfinished business."

 

John groaned. "For fuck's sake, he's still going after Stryker."

 

"No," Doug said and Scott looked a little taken aback. "You don't get to risk us to get your revenge."

 

"There's no risk to you..." Scott started but Doug talked over him.

 

"What happens if I need your help between here and the van?" Doug asked. "What happens if they capture you before you get the chance to kill Stryker and he brainwashes you into being his new pet sensate. You're already able to track me and Bobby."

 

"I'm not sure that he _can_ do that," Scott said, looking thoughtful. "There has to be a reason that he's never done it to another sensate. It has to be easier to brainwash every sensate he finds into giving up their cluster rather than dragging around one particular sensate in the hopes that she'll make eye contact with the right people. I think there must have something about her, specifically."

 

"Okay, but what if that something that made her so susceptible is also in you?" Doug pointed out. "You can't definitively tell me it's not and that still leaves me in danger. You're putting my cluster in danger. So no, I'm not letting you stay here."

 

Scott's expression hardened. "You can't make me go with you, Doug. I _need_ to do this."

 

John shook his head and then asked Doug if he could take over.

 

"Jean wouldn't want you to do this." John started talking as soon as he was in Doug's body again. "Don't even begin to tell me that she would. You want to do something, then man the hell up and honour her memory by helping us. And I mean, really helping us, not this half assed crap you pulled with Bobby before you fucked off to find yourself, or wherever the fuck you went."

 

Scott frowned. "I had to go. I had to..."

 

"I don't care!" John snapped. "You left us with _Logan_ as our mentor; I like the guy but it's like pulling teeth to get information out of him most of the time. And speaking of Logan, you fucking abandoned him too; the one person who knows what you're going through because he's going through it as well. Get a fucking grip, Scott, and help us; we need you!"

 

John held his breath as Scott just stared at him for a long moment. Then, very slowly, he began to nod.

 

"Okay," he said in a shaky voice. "You're right. Let's go."

 

"Halle-fucking-lullah!" John snarked, even though the relief he felt was rushing through him like water. "Oh...and don't tell Logan that I said I like him."

 

Scott snorted despite the regret still lining his face and he pushed the gurney through the exit, into the lightening sky of early morning.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-


	15. And I Say, Hey, Hey, Hey Hey

**_ Bobby _ **

 

If Bobby was honest with himself, he expected to wake up in Stryker's House of Horrors; if he woke up at all. He certainly hadn't expected to wake up in the luxurious surroundings of a private plane, with a flight attendant smiling at him as she poured him a glass of ice cold water.

 

"She thinks that you're a childhood friend of mine who owes money to the wrong people," Warren told him from the seat opposite. "If I was here in person, I could come up with a much better tale of woe to explain your injuries and need to leave the country but I think it's good enough for now. I'm sure that my father will very much believe it when he finds out that I commandeered the jet again."

 

Bobby gingerly moved his chair into the seated position. "This is _your_ plane?"

 

"The family plane, really," Warren said with a shrug. "The Worthington. My father doesn't have much imagination for naming things."

 

Giving Warren a faint smile, Bobby took a sip of the blissfully cold water and sighed before he allowed himself another look around the jet.

 

"You know, this is just crazy enough to be a dream," he pointed out, conversationally.

 

Warren snorted. "Then why am I here instead of your grumpy beau?"

 

Bobby raised his eyebrows at him. "Did you just call John, my ' _beau_ '? Talking like an 18th century dandy isn't helping you prove that this is real."

 

"I'm rich. It's how we all talk," Warren told him. "You're just lucky that I'm not talking about myself in the third person. I've heard that's all the rage in the Upper West Side right now."

 

"Fuck off!" Bobby chuckled and then gave a hiss of pain when that jostled his ribs.

 

"Did that hurt?" Warren asked and when Bobby nodded, he added. "Then this is real."

 

"It's real," Bobby repeated quietly. "You did it?"

 

Warren nodded with a broad smile. "Not me, personally. But I like to think that we all helped."

 

"And everyone's okay?"

 

"I think that Scott has a lot of soul searching to do," Warren said. "John and Doug hit him with a mental 2 by 4 about his behaviour lately but I'm sure he'll probably tell you about it when he wakes up. Or not; this is Scott, after all."

 

Warren nodded behind Bobby and he turned just enough to see Scott curled up in a chair, looking like death warmed over and frowning even in his sleep.

 

"He's your older brother, dragged into your problems; if anyone should ask," Warren said. "Oh, and you've got new names too. Robert and, I guess Scott, Shrier. Your new passport is in your jacket pocket. I had it made while you were in the hospital; just in case."

 

It was at that point that Bobby realised he was wearing actual clothes and not the scrubs he'd been in when he was last awake. He guessed that they had to dress him before they put him on the plane; less questions that way. He reached into the inside pocket of his new leather jacket, on the seat next to him, and pulled out the passport. He recognised the photo; it was the one from his high school yearbook. He rubbed his finger across his new name.

 

"My parents?" he couldn’t help but ask.

 

Fury distorted Warren's face for a moment before he shook it away. "They are facing some questions from the police because the 'Dr Cooper' who took you away doesn't actually exist. Boston's CSI have also linked your brother to your attack thanks to him bleeding all over you when you broke his nose."

 

Despite everything, Bobby felt a stab of worry about them and Warren obviously read that in his face.

 

"Your parents will probably be fine; the fact that the hospital was duped by Stryker too will work in their favour. Your brother's likely in a lot more trouble, what with it being a hate crime and all." At Bobby's questioning look, Warren explained. "Your parents made it clear to the cops why they thought you'd been beaten up. But I'm pretty sure that your brother won't hesitate to try and make a deal if he gives the rest of the gang up. You're not the first person that they've gay bashed lately.”

 

He paused for a moment and then asked, “You know that your family don't deserve even a minute of your concern, right?"

 

Bobby shrugged with his good shoulder. "They did get tricked by Stryker. So they must have wanted me to get better."

 

"Not just from your injuries," Warren muttered and then waved his hand when Bobby looked confused. "I'm sure that John will fill you in later. For now, the girls bullied him into getting some sleep; the guy had been awake for twenty four hours by the time we got you onto the plane. And we all know that he didn't get much sleep the night before that."

 

Warren's waggling eyebrows made Bobby flush because, of course, the cluster knew just why John hadn't had much sleep the night before.

 

Chuckling at Bobby’s embarrassment, Warren decided to add to it by saying, matter-of-factly, “You know, I really can’t wait to see what it feels like for us when you and John screw in real life. Although you should let me know before you do, so that I can Tinder someone up to sleep with at the same time. I think that it will be explosive.”

 

“I’m not scheduling my sex-life around you, Warren.” Bobby rolled his eyes and then what Warren had actually said caught up with him.

 

Warren laughed as Bobby’s eyes suddenly widened. “There you go. It is pretty funny that you haven’t asked where you’re actually flying to before now.”

 

“I assumed it was to you in the UK,” Bobby said faintly. “Warren? Where am I flying to?”

 

“Australia, of course,” Warren replied with a shit eating grin.

 

Australia. Bobby was going to meet John, in person. Holy shit!

 

Bobby couldn’t help but return Warren’s grin.

 

The rest of the plane journey seemed to take forever. It was a ridiculously long flight at the best of times but when you were eagerly anticipating arriving at the other end, it dragged; Bobby was just lucky that he’d slept through the wait when they’d swapped planes at Toronto. When Scott finally woke up, he seemed to regard Bobby's anstyness with an odd mixture of amusement and irritation but managed to distract him for a while by teaching him some mental tricks to use with the cluster using Warren as a guinea pig. Warren also tried to distract Bobby from the long journey by attempting to turn all of their interactions sexual in some ridiculous way just to make Bobby laugh and Scott roll his eyes when Bobby relayed why each particular trick hadn’t worked that time.

 

When Warren had to leave, Jubilee took his place but by that time, Scott had reached his limit of dealing with ‘’baby sensates who didn’t take him seriously enough’; although Bobby thought it was actually that Scott was still dealing with the fallout of whatever it was that John had said to him and wanted some alone time to think. Bobby and Jubilee decided to leave him to it and watch a movie instead, at which point Rogue and Doug had to be dragged into it because the four of them were the core movie watching gang. 

 

There was a lot of giggly booing from the peanut gallery when Bobby asked Sarah, the Flight Attendant, what movies were available, to discover that Warren had requested only ‘Snakes on a Plane’, ‘Airplane’ and ‘Die Hard 2’ be made available for that flight. While his three sensates fought in the background over which movie they should choose, Bobby pretended to really think hard about his decision before finally asking Sarah to put on the chosen, ‘Snakes on a Plane’. And really, it was worth picking that one to see the utter confusion on Scott’s face when he returned to the main cabin from his self imposed exile in the back section and caught sight of what was on the main screen.

 

When the plane finally touched down in Sydney, the other sensates left Bobby alone but he could feel them still there in the back of his mind, watching what was about to happen. Despite Warren’s assurances that Bobby’s new passport was indiscernible from a real one, Bobby still held his breath when he handed it over to the customs official. The official kept looking from the passport, back to Bobby; clearly wanting to inquire about Bobby’s bruised and battered appearance but, apparently, arriving in a billionaire’s private jet afforded some discretion and the official just waved Bobby through.

 

“Stop fidgeting,” Scott murmured to him as they walked right past the baggage claim area into the main part of the airport. “It makes you look like you’re up to something and they can still pull us aside if they choose to.”

 

Bobby tried to reel it in a bit but his eyes kept scanning the crowds of people looking for one particular familiar face. So, obviously, he noticed the wrong familiar face.

 

“Logan,” Bobby said, nudging Scott and pointing to where Logan lounged against a wall.

 

Scott sighed and nodded before they made their way over to him.

 

“You look like shit,” was the first thing Logan said, his eyes flicking over Scott.

 

“You always look like shit,” Scott shot back. “It’s nice to see that you’ve showered for a change though.”

 

Both men eyed each other and Bobby began to feel concerned because they really didn’t need to draw attention to themselves by brawling in the middle of an airport. Then Logan unexpectedly pulled Scott into a hug. Scott stiffened, obviously taken by complete surprise before he sort of collapsed against Logan for a moment. According to Warren, John had insisted that Scott accompany Bobby to Australia and now Bobby could see why. Scott and Logan needed each other if they were going to get past Jean’s death.

 

Once Scott had stepped back, Logan ran an appraising eye over Bobby.

 

“I made the kid stay with the car,” Logan told him, obviously referring to the absent John. “Didn’t need a romcom airport moment happening; we’re trying to keep a low profile.”

 

Bobby smiled at the idea that John couldn’t be trusted not to pounce on Bobby the moment he saw him and it turned out that Logan was right not to trust him because as soon as the car came into view, John jumped out. The first thing he did was carefully hug Bobby, completely ignoring Logan and Scott, and pull him into a kiss that was simultaneously familiar and brand new because it was actually happening outside of Bobby’s mind.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Logan muttered behind them. “Just get in the fucking car, will you?”

 

Scott snorted. “I see where John’s picked up all his swearing.”

 

John gave Scott the finger, obviously pissed at Scott for something that Bobby was sure he’d find out about later, and then helped Bobby climb into the passenger seat without jostling his injuries too much.

 

As soon as they reached John’s apartment, John dragged Bobby back into his arms, much to Logan’s protestations before Scott prodded Logan into the kitchen to 'give the boys some privacy'.

 

“I can’t believe that you’re actually here,” John said against Bobby’s lips, his hands stroking over Bobby’s body as if to confirm the fact.

 

“That makes two of us,” Bobby replied with a smile. “Are you sure...?”

 

“If you ask me if I’m sure it’s okay for you to stay here, I will tell the rest of the cluster and we will all laugh at you until we’re sick,” John told him and Bobby chuckled.

 

“Okay then, as long as you _are_ sure,” he said and pulled John into a proper hello kiss.

 

Hours later, after they had eaten and watched Logan and Scott snark at each other for a while, Bobby and John lay together in John’s bed. There was no chance for anything more than cuddling, not until Bobby’s injuries had healed, but he was more than happy to lie back against John, as John leaned on the headboard, and feel the other man against him, skin to skin. 

 

“I can’t believe how close I came to losing you,” John said as he nuzzled the side of Bobby’s neck.

 

Bobby squeezed John’s hand. “But you didn’t.”

 

“No, I didn’t,” John agreed; Bobby could feel the smile against his skin and resolved to always make John smile as much as possible.

 

There was a lot of uncertainty ahead; how they were going to make money, how they were going to stay ahead of Stryker and even if they were going to stay in Australia. But Bobby knew that whatever happened, they would face it together; Bobby, John and the other six people in their head.

_ The End _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing in this universe but I feel bad that I short changed the rest of the cluster somewhat. The story was about John and Bobby and if I'd given as much attention to the others as they deserved then the fic would be ridiculously long. But if anyone else wants to give it a go then feel free, just remember to link back here so that we can all read it :D


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